That nature bears more than a passing resemblance to Playdead's previous game. You'll find no audio logs or graffiti written on walls in blood here, as Inside trades in subtler, more ambiguous hints at its true nature. Inside drips atmosphere and effortless world-building. I hesitate to give specifics, because it's best discovered on your own, but broadly, Inside expertly depicts a run-down, dystopian universe (think Half-Life 2's City 17, but, uh, bleaker) populated by individuals whose exact nature I had just barely started to understand by the end. Where Limbo dealt primarily in silhouettes, Inside's world is a much more concrete setting, literally and figuratively, than anything you saw in Playdead's previous game. Thankfully, this shift in focus is earned, as the universe Inside depicts is one of the most eerie, most captivating settings I've ever encountered in a game. While Limbo was ostensibly a story about a boy rescuing his sister, Inside is more concerned with pulling you into its world than telling the story of any one specific character. It's what Playdead does within the framework it established with Limbo that makes Inside so damn good.įrom the opening title card to the moment the credits roll, don't expect to see a single word of text or dialogue in Inside - there is none. It's also a staunchly linear game - you'll spend most of Inside running from left to right, navigating through occasional (often lethal) puzzles that bar your progression, before moving on to the next sequence. Like Limbo, Inside puts you in the shoes of a small boy cast into a mysterious, dangerous, often disturbing situation. Like Limbo, Inside is a melancholy, sparsely colored 2D puzzle-platformer. If you're wondering why I'm comparing Inside so directly to its predecessor, that's because it's an extremely easy comparison to make. It was a gorgeous, clever, moody, polished platformer that gushed confidence, boasting a stark black-and-white art style and a haunting, unspoken narrative that left itself open to interpretation. Limbo, the first (and, before now, only) game from Inside developer Playdead, stands as one of the first great triumphs of console indie games.

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