OK so every once in a while a game shows up from a studio you've never heard of and just... takes your whole evening hostage. That's End of Abyss, the debut title from the team at Section 9, and based on everything coming out of the review over at Cog Connected, this is one of those games that follows you around after the credits roll.

The review is called "A Chilling Descent Into Darkness," and if that title doesn't tell you what you're in for, I don't know what will. the vibe is the whole thing here.

It's a descent game. Like, literally. You go down. And down. And the deeper you get, the more the game starts quietly rearranging the furniture in your brain. From everything the review describes, the atmosphere is the star: the darkness works like an actual character, like pressure, it follows you around like a thing with opinions. You know those games where you turn your flashlight on and immediately regret it because now you can SEE what's been standing there? That. Repeatedly.

And I will say this as universal advice regardless of the source material: play it with headphones. Horror lives in your ears before it ever reaches your eyes, and a game built on atmosphere like this one deserves the full sensory treatment.

What makes it more impressive is that this is Section 9's first game. A DEBUT. Most studios spend their first outing playing it safe, some mid-sized indie thing, learn the ropes, ship it, move on. Section 9 apparently looked at that path and said no thank you, and instead built something moody and confident and weirdly beautiful in the way deep ocean creatures are beautiful, which is to say gorgeously and also nope.

I don't want to spoil anything about the story because half the power of a game like this is not knowing what's below you, and the less you know going in the better it works. For the full breakdown of how it plays, how the descent unfolds, and all the scoring details, go read the actual review. the reviewer lived down there and I merely read the report back.

Weirdly, and this will surprise exactly no one who reads my stuff, I was drawn to this one partly because it's a game about the deep dark. I write about barreleye fish and glowing coral and the bottom of lakes for a living, basically, and the thing the real abyss gets right is this: the darkness down there is full of things. And some of them are looking back.

If you're the person in your group chat who sends everyone the weird deep sea footage, this one was made for you. Full review over at Cog Connected.

I'm going to go leave a light on. Not because I'm scared. Just because.