A 2D platformer whose inspirations embrace Limbo, Dark Souls, and Portal is without doubt one of the most creative, and tough, video games of the yr.
In the youth of video video games, if you needed to put a coin in a slot to play them, all the things was brutally tough. Not essentially to the purpose of being unfair – producers didn’t need you to really feel as if you’d been fleeced if you died – however difficult sufficient {that a} regular stream of cash could be wanted from all however essentially the most achieved gamers.
When dwelling consoles first emerged the identical philosophy continued, partly as a result of it was earlier than the period of save factors, so each time you began up a sport it was from the very starting. After the appearance of reminiscence playing cards, onerous drives, and cloud saves, video video games grew to become a extra mainstream passion, and builders intentionally made them extra accessible to attraction to audiences unused to being digitally brutalised for enjoyable.
Because historical past is cyclical, and an excessive amount of of a very good factor tends to get boring, over the previous decade there’s been a transfer again to video games that provide a far larger diploma of problem. Roguelikes are one indicator that issue is again in trend, nevertheless it’s FromSoftware program’s Soulsborne video games which have been on the forefront of the motion to cease mollycoddling gamers, as a substitute treating them like adults – albeit adults in a boot camp constructed to make them higher gamers.
Bionic Bay doesn’t look or sound like a From sport, nevertheless it’s impressed by the identical ethos of sincere but unforgiving problem. It’s a sinister-looking, side-scrolling platformer that’s instantly harking back to video games reminiscent of Limbo and Inside. Like its inspirations, Bionic Bay is a sport of few phrases, preferring to let its surroundings inform you many of the issues you might want to learn about each its story and the mechanics you’ll be able to harness to make your method via its gargantuan, bio-mechanical landscapes.
Your set of strikes – a splash, bounce, and roll – might be put collectively in varied mixtures to bridge gaps that look unachievable and make precision jumps via gaps so tight you’re initially satisfied you’ve obtained the flawed concept about the place you’re imagined to be going. You additionally get given a teleporter that you could connect to things and immediately swap locations with them.
That easy-to-understand mechanic is quickly put to more and more advanced use, from permitting you to make your method throughout even bigger chasms, by beaming islands into the proper place to hop throughout, to constructing – after which transferring – boundaries that stop you from being vaporised by scanning laser beams. There are sections the place you’ll be able to decelerate time for a number of seconds, or punch objects with disproportionate drive, and that’s all within the opening few hours.
Each new means is fastidiously launched, getting you used to the way it works earlier than it’s riffed on to provide temporary however absurdly advanced set items that you simply’ll must retry dozens of occasions earlier than lastly making a run to the subsequent checkpoint. Many of these are in-game seconds aside however can require many minutes of repeatedly dying earlier than you will have ample talent to finish them within the requisite single take.
Checkpoints are happily beneficiant, or no less than they begin off that method. As you get additional into the sport you more and more come throughout conditions that in the first place appear fully not possible, their issue so excessive that no human might be anticipated to exhibit that stage of precision and timing, not to mention as a part of an extended sequence of strikes, failure in any one in every of which causes immediate demise.
Part of Bionic Bay’s magic is that it’s not solely pleased to do that however does it frequently. That means you grow to be accustomed to sections that originally appear to be useless ends, however over the course of quite a few makes an attempt grow to be nearly second nature, so what was as soon as an implausible dream turns into one thing that, given a pair retries, you are able to do comparatively simply. The sport trains you to be a greater participant with out the frippery of power-ups or prolonged vitality bars.
Bionic Bay is fully constructed round reasonable physics, so gravity works, explosions ship unfastened items of surroundings flying, and momentum is conserved if you use your teleporter, resulting in 2D Portal-style hijinks. An unanticipated aspect impact of that’s that your tiny hero’s movement across the display has one thing indefinably Muppet-esque about it. It prevents the gargantuan, damaged industrial backdrops from feeling too bleak, and infuses the entire thing with an odd sense of jollity.
His ragdoll physics additionally make a lot of your frequent, unintentional deaths comical, as do the sound results as he’s crushed or seared, the cheerful squelches and singeing noises including character regardless of the character’s minuscule onscreen stature. But that’s all simply window dressing for the succession of elegantly designed and barely knockabout micro-puzzles, to be unpicked as you get deeper into its half-lit biomes.
Bionic Bay delivers cruel classes in dexterity and timing, frequently pushing you in the direction of larger achievements in platforming perfection. It Impresses with the ingenuity of it challenges and its refusal to recycle concepts makes each stage its personal distinctive conundrum. If you take pleasure in uncompromising video games, which can be additionally imaginative and creative, then that is going to go down as top-of-the-line experiences of 2025.
Bionic Bay assessment abstract
Pros: Ultra-tight controls and a dedication to preserving – and enjoying with – the legal guidelines of physics. Glorious, silhouetted landscapes and an issue stage that’s difficult however by no means unfair.
Cons: Well-judged or not the difficultly stage can be an excessive amount of for some. Visuals is usually a little too dour at occasions.
Score: 9/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed) and PC
Price: TBA
Publisher: Kepler Interactive
Developer: Mureena and Psychoflow Studio
Release Date: seventeenth April 2025
Age Rating: 12
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