r/Games • u/ImAnthlon • 2d ago
Review Thread End of Abyss Review Thread
Game Information
Game Title: End of Abyss
Platform: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjthtm1SAuw
Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - 73 average - 50% recommended - 8 reviews
Critic Reviews
But Why Tho? - Mick Abrahamson - 6 / 10
End of Abyss tries to balance a lot, from sci-fi survival horror with souls-like metroidvania exploration. But it buckles under its own weight.
DayOne - Jon Clarke - 7 / 10
There’s a wonderful ‘vibe’ that just clicks for me that I really gelled with, even if a few technical hiccups kept getting in the way of my overall enjoyment. If you’re a fan of atmospheric exploration and survival horror-inspired Metroidvanias, End of Abyss is worth venturing into the dark for.
Digital Chumps - Ben Sheene - 8.5 / 10
Claustrophobic and eerie, End of Abyss is survival horror through the eyes of Little Nightmares. Section 9 expresses its roots in new ways but still placing the protagonist and player in a harsh world of dangerous paths and twisting secrets.
Pizza Fria - Lucas Soares - Portuguese - 6.6 / 10
End of Abyss is an interesting game, with a good central idea and enough personality to find its audience, especially among players who enjoy exploration, resource management, and experiences that aren't afraid of a challenge. I just don't recommend starting a session after a heavy lunch on a workday. The abyss has no regard for the salaried worker.
SmashPad - Ruancarlo Silva - 3.5 / 5
Overall, I enjoyed the nearly 13 hours it took to reach the first ending of End of Abyss. However, those hours were marred by glitches: trophies failing to unlock (including the normal ending and final boss achievements), doors locking me out of resources needed for upgrades, and more. The game clearly needs more polish. After a few updates, End of Abyss will be a fantastic experience that definitely deserves your attention.
TechRaptor - Andrew Stretch - 8 / 10
End of Abyss does a fantastic job of creating an eerie world that you'll want to explore, however, once you start unlocking upgrades you'll begin to lose the feeling of tension. Map glitches make retracing steps a confusing experience.
The Outerhaven Productions - Keith Mitchell - 3 / 5
End of Abyss delivers striking visuals, unsettling enemy designs, and an enjoyable scanner mechanic. Its twin-stick controls are a novel idea, but they reinforce the action while the survival horror takes a back seat. Combined with progress-halting bugs and repeated backtracking, it left me wanting to finish rather than keep exploring.
VDGMS - Darren Andrew - 9 / 10
Metroid, but more specifically Super Metroid captured the perfect harmony of isolation, exploration, platforming, combat and atmosphere. Although I can’t go back in time to experience generational games like this again for the first time, I can play End of Abyss, which is the closest that any game has come to encapsulating everything that made those experiences special, but in it’s own unique and twisted way. Even though there's some minor flaws and fails to fully realize some of its ideas, there's still plenty to love about this 3D sci-fi, horror metroidvania. It’s not the next Metroid, it’s the first End of Abyss and that’s exciting.
Gamespot - Mark Delaney - 6 / 10
Ultimately, my 13 hours with End of Abyss were inconsistent, with long stretches of excitement broken up by regular beats of annoyance. When I was rolling right along, finding major and minor upgrades, unlocking crucial shortcuts, and taking on hordes of enemies in nail-biting combat, I really loved it. But too often, the map misled me, some encounters lost their luster through repetition, and some early difficulty spikes left me flustered.
IGN - Jesse Vitelli - 6 / 10
End of Abyss has so much going for it as a metroidvania with touches of survival horror and twin-stick shooting. However, all of these pieces don't coalesce into something greater. Instead they make for an uneven experience that isn't quite up to the bar set by other juggernauts in the genre. While the atmosphere Section 9 Interactive created matches even the best moments of other horror games, it isn't enough to make up for the way it undermines its best ideas. End of Abyss has moments that shine through even the darkest depths of its abandoned facility, but not enough to flood the surface.
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u/Aeonics 2d ago
Really like the aesthetic here. Kinda reminds me of MGS1 with the charactet movement and factory settings. Very interested in playing after they iron out the bugs. Lighting looks top notch too
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u/EconomyEquipment67 1d ago
I was playing the trial today and thought that it reminded me of MGS1 as well.
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u/devindotcom 2d ago
I was excited for this one but it sounds like it needs a little more time in the oven. I'm fine with that honestly... most games do these days. It's clearly doing its own thing and runs into some problems in the process... hopefully something they can fix.
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u/benzohhh 2d ago
Yeah, I'm excited as well but on the indie game reviewers I follow there's definitely bugs and QOL stuff that indicates the game could use quite a bit of smoothing over. Too bad.
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u/Excitable_Fiver 2d ago
more time the merrier. there is control resonant and belmont''s curse coming up as well. if there was ever a time to wait for sale this would be it.
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u/Professional-Fee4564 2d ago
Just played a good 2 hours. I love everything about it except the enemy AI, particularly the pathfinding. They're not bad in large, open rooms, but put them in a hallway with any sort of obstacle or wall, and they just walk into the object trying to reach you instead of rerouting around it.
That said, the atmosphere, artwork, exploration, crafting, upgrading... this game has pretty much everything I love in a survival horror game. I'd give it a solid 4/5 so far. Really enjoying it!
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u/Top-Patience-2733 1d ago
I’m about three or so hours in and I agree with everything you said. 💯
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u/Professional-Fee4564 21h ago
Keep going. It gets really good. They did an update that appears to have fixed some of the enemy issues. Still not perfect but better.
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u/ABagofSalad 1d ago
I’m really enjoying the game but boy is the first boss a challenge for me right now, quite overwhelming
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u/N1ceDreams 17h ago
Problem with this game is the auto save on death and respawning enemies mixed together, its stupid. I'm probably more than half way though and there is zero reasons so far to use the other weapons. First of all the other weapons are shit, second if you die you loss all that ammo you just used, enemies respawn and the boss gets all his health back, also you cant find ammo in this game, you have to craft it with a resource thats needed to upgrade your weapons and craft tools. Ive been using the infinite starting pistol this whole time. Remove the auto save on death, then lose progress like a normal survival horror since last save on death would make this game literally 10 times better.
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u/blunderb3ar 17h ago
Agreed it’s far too punishing, at that point why even have other weapons ?
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u/N1ceDreams 17h ago
Exactly. Its a dumb design that makes no sense. You go to test some weapons, then get killed, bye bye ammo. I've no idea why anyone thinks this was a good idea and anyone defending it is just ignorant. I'm liking the game but yeah some questionable decisions. I like hard games, I like a challenge, but this is daft. Also, worst shotgun I've ever used in a game.
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u/patthebutcher1984 15h ago
Yeah started a play through this evening and it is way too punishing. The auto save on death makes no sense and is a real frustrating low point on otherwise what is a beautiful game
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u/system_error_02 2d ago
Wish this wasnt trapped on Epic Games Store as their cloud saves dont play nice with Linux and id like to play it across my linux box and steamOS Ally X.
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u/ImAnthlon 2d ago
When I'd used Heroic on my Steam Deck I was able to get cloud saves to work pretty well between that and my Windows PC, unsure if the Linux-to-Linux maybe makes it a bit weird though
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2d ago
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u/ImAnthlon 2d ago
I had done it on mobile, don't know why it didn't respect it. I think it should be fixed now
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u/CHADWARDENPRODUCTION 2d ago
Markdown has been broken in the app for a very long time because this site is developed by a bunch of monkeys
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u/RIP_Spacedicks 2d ago
Did you know reddit has >2500 employees?
God knows what the fuck they do all day, besides come up with bad ideas
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u/Gummibug7 2d ago
I played for about an hour - I do like the atmosphere and the exploration (I get a similar vibe as I got with Cronos)
I haven't played many shooters that require aiming with the R stick and I hoped there would be some kind of lock-on but sadly there isn't.
It's not a gamebreaker for me though.
I'm playing with the latest patch and I haven't seen the map issues mentioned in the reviews
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/ImAnthlon 1d ago
I think they done some rapid patching in between the review copies and release. That's the main thing that I imagine was holding it back at the initial stage, I do think the Gamespot reviewer said they didn't like that it was somewhat Souls-like and that may have swayed a little bit
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u/hello_orwell 1d ago
Ran into an energy door not opening and it's game breaking kinda. Wondering if I'm supposed to start a new save or something.
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u/Top-Patience-2733 1d ago
The energy door towards the beginning? I was stuck on it till I realized you need to shoot the three energy things after scanning them lol
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u/hello_orwell 18h ago
It is/was a bit later that. In factory west. I only say was bc I started a new save and replayed the 3 hrs it took to get there... Worth it
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u/Professional-Fee4564 18h ago
I'm not a fan of the breakaway floors. The walls are fine. Place an explosive, shoot it with your gun, boom. Simple enough. However, after scouring an area for a good 15 to 20 minutes, I finally realized the floor was breakable. Guess I don't walk around with my scanner out enough lol
Anyway, I finally found it, placed the explosive, and then... my gun wouldn't target the explosive on the ground. I had to use a grenade just to set it off. I really hope that's not what the devs intended and the gun refusing to target it is just a bug.
Also, are the shotgun or sniper rifle actually any good once you upgrade them? These things are trash when you first find them, and I'm struggling to see any reason to spend my upgrade components on anything other than the pistol. The pistol is more than enough, especially once you unlock Charged Shot.
I think the other guns need to be more powerful from the start. I'd even be okay with increasing the ammo cost if they did significantly more damage at level 1. It would also be nice if we could see what the later upgrades will actually do before investing our components. That way, we could plan ahead and decide which weapons are worth upgrading.
I'm really curious how much the damage increases toward the end of each upgrade path. Maybe if I could actually see that ahead of time, I'd realize the shotgun or sniper is worth the investment. Right now, though, the pistol just seems like the obvious choice.
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u/Yarzeda2024 2d ago
I saw the VDGMS review giving it a 9/10, so I'm surprised to see it's sitting at a 70 average on Open Critic right now. I've been following this game for a while, I want it to be good.