$24.99BELOW Descend, survive, wonder
Explore a shifting underground labyrinth on a grim island, managing scarce supplies and one lantern while the dark presses in and every run digs deeper.
Is BELOW worth it?
BELOW is worth it if…
- you have patience for a slow, quiet game that teaches through failure rather than tutorials
- you enjoy exploring dark, atmospheric worlds where the story arrives wordlessly
- you like roguelike runs where preparation, scavenging and route knowledge matter more than fast reflexes
- you want a mystery that stays hidden until the very end
Screenshots
A descent that never explains itself
You wash up on an island with a hole in it, and that is most of the briefing. BELOW hands you no tutorial, no map markers and no hints: the story is told wordlessly, through the places you find and the things that happen to you. The camera pulls back at moments to show how small you are against the dark, and the sound does the narrating, with ambience and music that shift as you go deeper. It is a slow, brooding opening, and some find the early stretches too quiet. But if you like piecing a world together from what you see rather than what you are told, the mystery down here is worth the patience.
Survival with one lantern and four pockets
The Depths watch your hunger, thirst and temperature, and they do not forgive carelessness. You scavenge flora and fauna to craft remedies and tools, but your belt holds only four items, two of which you choose, so every descent is a bet on what you will need. Then there is the lantern: your light, your progression, and the thing your corpse keeps when you die. Getting it back means a careful walk back down through rooms you barely survived once. Combat itself is fluid and responsive, with small tricks to discover, like a shield bash that staggers a blocking enemy. Preparation, not reflexes, is what keeps you alive.
How punishing is death, really?
What happens when you die?
Each death starts a new explorer, and your old body stays where it fell, holding your gear and the lantern you need to keep going. You can walk back down and retrieve it, but die again and the lantern scatters somewhere on that level instead. Campfires and shortcuts help, though some reset between lives. It is a harsh loop by design, and it is the part of the game that divides people most.
Can you play it solo?
Yes, entirely. BELOW is a singleplayer game about being alone, and that isolation is part of how it works: no companions, no chatter, just you, the dark and whatever is making that sound.
How long is a run?
There is no fixed session length. A descent can end in minutes to an instakill trap, or stretch into a long, careful push through several levels as you manage food, water and lantern fuel. Progress comes in layers: shortcuts and knowledge persist, so each run starts a little further ahead than the last.
Do you need to like horror games?
Not necessarily. The dread here comes from darkness, scarcity and a shadowy presence stalking the depths rather than from constant scares. It is unsettling and tense, but the fear is mostly about what you cannot see and what you might lose, not about being chased.
