Hands on with Phantom Abyss - Preview

The moment that I saw the first trailer for Phantom Abyss, I knew it was the type of game that I would love to play, it scratched the itch of exploring ‘Mayan’ temples, but also competing against other players, to see who could make it to the treasure. What I didn’t expect was that once someone claims a treasure in the ruin, it is closed forever and if you die in an attempt, you can never try that temple again. Now that the game has launched into early access, I have put some significant time into the game, is what I was hoping for?

The short answer is yes, yes, it is, the longer answer will take some explaining, the basic gist is that you need to run from the start of the temple, through to the end, avoiding the various traps along the way. The catch is that if you fall to them or the guardian that protects that temple, you are done, there is second attempt, so each choice you make, as you run through, must be thought out carefully. As this game is played from the first-person point of view, you might think there is a lot of action, but apart from your whip, there is little to do, outside of collecting coins, but that helps with the games simple premise, just survive.

Surviving is made possible by learning what traps look like, how they operate and more importantly the whip that you take into the temple with you. When you first start your whip is basic, it allows you to crack open treasure chests from a distance and when swapped with the grapple end, pulls you up, to higher placed ledges, or from holes you might have fallen into. Another method for survival is watching the ghosts of explorers past, other folks who have entered the temple and failed, sometimes you will see just a few and others many, but each will run along, just as they did when controlled by a human, including the part where they died. The challenge will come in, once the guardian shows up, right now there are only three and each has their own method of dealing with invaders; but the more you progress in the temple, the more annoyed they will get, which only increases their deadliness.

While I did start to learn some rooms quickly, given how often they showed up, they are not always going to be the same in terms of what is in them, sometimes they would be full of traps, other times it would be a lot of chests and such. The only rooms that don’t change, from temple to temple, are the safe points at the end of each section, here you can swap your coins for a blessing, though the cost increases each time, and you get to choose from one of two options. Sometimes they can be paltry, like a slightly longer or faster whip, but there are also times when the choice can be hard, like refilling all hearts or allowing a double jump. Because these are quite random, which ones you take, or don’t take, will impact how much your future progress will vary.

The main goal is to attempt to claim a relic and there are a few ways you can do that, the first is within the opening stages of the temple, you will have to survive a few sections, avoid an angered guardian, and then activate some switches, but the relic will be yours to claim. Doing that is a challenge, but you don’t have to claim that relic, in fact once you get to the point where you can go down and get it, you can elect to ignore it and go further into the temple, to claim an even more powerful relic, but the greater the reward, the more dangerous the risks. While I have managed to obtain a few relics from the first section of the temple, the second portion, the Caverns has yet provided more challenge than I was expecting.

Something else to consider, at least when you are not being chased by the guardian of rage, is that there are countless chests hidden around the place, some you will see in rooms, as if calling out to you, others requiring exploration to discover. The reason you will want to do this though is twofold, one it gets you many more coins to purchase blessings with, but occasionally, you will be rewarded with tokens, which you need one for each time you want to enter the Caverns, but also, they let you buy new whips. Some whips will let you drop from any height and not take damage, others will allow you to heal, in exchange for coins, but each whip also has a downside to using it, one provides you an extra heart for use, but standing in water is like poison and will hurt you, another doubles the damage of the guardian in that temple. When you fail though, that whip remains trapped in a temple, until another player finds it and sets it free, however, should you claim a relic with a special whip being used, it will be powered up and the negative effect is removed.

Phantom Abyss was always going to be a game I wanted to play, so much to the point where my rule of not playing games in early access, has been ignored for it. It is scratching the itch of ‘just one more go’ but also not inducing rage when I fail, well not a lot at least, the game still has issues to work out. While it is in early access now and is going to get updated, what is being offered now is solid, so if you are curious, I say jump in, but if you want to wait until the game is done, then I can respect that as well. I am on board with the game and can’t wait to see how it comes along over the coming months.