Limbo

Leaping through a lonely, threatening world.

Leaping a gap. Image credit: Playdead

First things first – don’t play Limbo if you are arachnophobic.

I downloaded Limbo to play to write about for Quick Play and according to Steam I actually played it for four hours back in 2013, which means I probably finished it, much to my surprise. I gave it some thought and what I do remember is the vibe and the atmosphere rather than the gameplay, which really tracks for my experience this time around too.

There’s no denying that the gameplay is fun. The puzzles start simple and intuitive; you run and jump and mantle, you move boxes. It ramps up to include some weirder mechanics like gravity swapping and machine guns, which I was much less keen on. They proved they could make interesting, challenging, and engaging puzzles with very few elements so when they added to the mixture, it felt unnecessary. I think I would rather the game ended three chapters sooner and didn’t have any machine guns in it for example.

As I alluded to, the place where Limbo truly shines is in the atmosphere. You are a little boy, alone and lost in the woods. Black and grey and grey and grey are the colours of choice and it’s breathtakingly effective. Two little pinpricks of light are your eyes, marking you out as more alive than the scenery, marginally.

Loneliness is at the heart of Limbo, the pervasive knowledge that you are alone radiates through the game. Even the ending, where traditionally a game might offer some relief from dark themes, is lonely. You walk slowly towards the little girl, bathed in light and playing heedlessly, but before you reach her the game fades to black, the credits roll. After the credits, the scene reappears as the background to the menu, but the girl is gone, the ladder leading to the warm inviting light is broken, you are alone again.

Alone and lonely. Image credit: Playdead

Even when you come across other people – other children – in the game, they do not invite you to join them. They do not offer you a safe place to rest or any advice. They are as hostile as the world you all occupy, springing traps and watching as you struggle, only to run off before you can ever reach them.

This paragraph discusses the spider. One of the game’s highlights for me was the section where you are being chased by a spider. It really drives home the scale and scope of the world and the character. When a spider is several times your size, you are very small indeed. It’s not a fast chase but it’s threatening, the spider’s legs are long and sharp, and you know instinctively, even primally, that you have to get away from it. It is thrumming with menace and danger.

I think Limbo holds up to time very well, primarily due to its simplicity. It knows exactly what it’s doing from start to finish and while I might not agree with every single detail, I am sure there are people out there who would argue that the gimmicky later levels were vital to the game overall. It sets out to create a melancholy, pessimistic atmosphere and achieves it with skill and precision.

• Game: Limbo

• Developer: Playdead

• Publisher: Playdead

• Platforms: PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch, Mobile