Inside (Switch eShop) Review

Inside is the follow-up game from the Limbo developers Playdead, so I’m going to get this out of the way real quickly; Inside improves on Limbo in nearly every way. I’m going to mention Limbo a bit in this review. Both games share so much of the same DNA that it’s difficult to not draw comparisons. Inside is a great three to four-hour experience that was built on the shoulders of its predecessor.

Inside is a puzzle platformer which places you in control of a boy. Where he’s going and what for is unknown; all there is for you is to push on and go on the journey with him. If you haven’t played it on any of the other platforms, there is so much here that is best experienced by playing it. If you’re in the market for a three to four hour atmospheric and somewhat haunting puzzle platformer then you should buy Inside.

Limbo is played with a monochromic world, filled with darkness and death lurking around every corner. Inside ups the amount of colour (if only slightly), and creates an aesthetic that sets the scene perfectly. From the moment you emerge from the woods from the depths of a research facility, there is a constant oppressive dystopian feeling. Everyone and everything is out to stop you, and when I say stop you I mean they will kill you. Like with Limbo, you will die many violent deaths.  Although the visuals aren’t super detailed, it is still brutal. This is not a platformer for children. The death in this game isn’t for novelty though, the world of Inside is unforgiving and with each time you kick the bucket, the more you’ll be able to learn and anticipate. From the very first scene, it feels tense. There will be times that chases end in very close calls, but when you get through it you feel great. Not that the game lets up, even when you’re walking/running through an area that seems empty you know it won’t stay that way for long. Like Limbo, Inside makes the most of ambient environmental sounds, whether it’s the sounds of the woods, pounding rain, whatever sounds coming from mysterious test facilities. It uses other sounds and music very sparingly; half the time you won’t even notice it until you really think about it.

Everything in Inside feels well thought out and very deliberate. It’s here to take you on a ride. For the majority of the three hours, everything feels quite fluid. While it’s not hard to send the boy to an untimely demise, you’ll quickly find the way forward. Later on, there’s some more involved puzzle solving, but even then you’re generally always moving in the right direction. That’s not to say the game is easy, some puzzles will have you stumped for a few minutes, but after a bit of trial and error, it generally clicks together. It never really reached a point I felt like the puzzles dragged. Even when you’re just running through somewhere, it’s helping set up a transition in the environment or to show off the area you’re in.

Because there are no loading screens once you’re playing, it becomes so easy to keep on playing. I was checking something for the review and nearly accidentally played the whole game again. A week afterwards I can still easily remember nearly every beat of that game; it sticks with you. For the most part that’s good, but because the game is purposely vague about what happens by the end it’s hard to not feel somewhat let down. I wish it could have been a bit more explicit in what is happening or what it all was. The worst thing you could do is try looking it up and falling down the rabbit hole of everyone else’s interpretations and let me tell you, people have thoughts about this game. It’s not that the game needs to spell everything out, just that the world you run through gives you so many questions about what’s going on and only some are kind of answered.

Now with Inside on most platforms including mobile, the question becomes ‘why get it on the Switch?’ The obvious answer is that the Switch means you can play it portable with the benefits of physical controls. To get the most out of it, playing it docked will let you soak in the atmosphere better, but playing it in the dark laying on your bed can make it pretty tense too.

If you enjoy single player platformers with an interesting narrative, then Inside should be right up your alley. If you haven’t played the game on anything else yet then the Switch is the perfect console to have it on. If you have played it then you don’t need this review to tell you how good it is.

Rating: 4.5/5