Exile's End

Editor's Notes

Digital PS4 version reviewed.

Introduction

From Matt Fielding's Magnetic Realms comes 'Exile's End,' a 2D action-adventure game in the style of old Commodore 64 and Amiga sci-fi titles, with nonlinear map design and collectible items that are needed to access new areas.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

The main draw of 'Exile's End' is its story mode, which sees the protagonist crash-landing near a mining outpost he's meant to investigate. With his suit damaged and supplies missing, he has to spend the early part of the campaign cautiously recovering energy and items before he can move on to his main mission.

In terms of gameplay, this translates to a lot of wandering around in search of items and paths that allow you to progress the minimalist narrative. To begin, the protagonist's suit needs to be repaired, taking immense fall damage that requires the player to maneuver extremely carefully.

After solving this problem, he finds himself without offensive capabilities outside of some rocks to throw, so it's up to the player to hop over most oncoming enemies until they can track down a weapon.

In theory, this might not sound so bad at all — but while I've outlined the player's goals quite clearly above, the game offers no such direction. Finding out what I had to do was all trial-and-error, wandering across the large and empty maps until I stumbled across a wrinkle I hadn't noticed before. The frustration and boredom of feeling constantly lost was compounded by the unforgiving difficulty — I died more times than I cared to count!

I understand that there are some players who are drawn to this kind of retro experience, without the "hand-holding" and easier modes of today's software. Still, I can't help but find the game design of 'Exile's End' repellent; while it effectively creates a sense of desperation and isolation through its bleak environments and lack of resources, I found myself in a near-constant state of boredom and frustration while playing it. At its core, this is a game with one hour of actual content that's padded out by leaving the player completely in the dark about their goals.

I enjoyed the Survival mode a bit more. This mode's focus is singular and obvious: get as many points as possible before time runs out. Here, the protagonist starts out with many more offensive capabilities, along with a double-jump that makes getting around a cinch. The faster pace and focus on action was a welcome change from the exhaustingly dismal proceedings of the campaign, although it wasn't something I found myself compelled to come back to many times.