Beneath Preview (PC)
Ready for more Lovecraftian survival-horror? Glad to hear it, as that’s exactly what Beneath is hoping to infect your mind with. A first-person shooter with action front and centre, it evoked strong memories of Condemned and F.E.A.R. Like a cosmic entity slowly infiltrating the recesses of your memories, Beneath is aiming to hook you in with intense survival combat and thick, hopeless atmosphere.
For this preview, I was given access to a portion of the game that took me roughly an hour to finish. During that time, I faced an amalgamation of reanimated, zombified humans, lurching tentacles from the ceilings, and pustulating orbs emanating from the ground. There are also squads of SWAT-like Hunk soldiers, hell-bent on adding your body to the corpse pile. Plenty of combat, a smidge of exploration, a plethora of danger. All’s fair in Lovecraft and war, as they say.
Right off the bat, Beneath hit me with the expectant survival horror tropes I’d hope to see. Weapons have limited ammo reserves. If ammo fails, there’s a clunky yet punchy crowbar, with enemies that take multiple hits to go down, and fleshy abominations to nervously blast at. In true Resident Evil vein, popping a monster’s head summons a group of writhing tentacles appearing from its neck, commanding the body to continue.
Combat felt solid and that ideal mix between responsive yet slow. Noah – our protagonist – has access to grenades and a healing syringe alongside his assault rifle, submachine gun and shotgun. Immediately, I was forced to consider positioning and managing my bullet expenditure carefully, lest I fall foul of an empty clip. Beneath places a strong emphasis on environmental weapons like exploding barrels and fire extinguishers, which you’ll absolutely need to take down larger mobs.
I was a little surprised that a Lovecraftian title would have so much combat, when traditionally the genre is more focused on madness, insight and knowledge beyond our understanding. However, as I mentioned before, it has strong Condemned vibes, and that has me intrigued to see what else the full release has up its madness-inducing sleeve.
Story-wise, there wasn’t a huge amount to glean from the preview build. Noah Quinn is a diver trapped in an undersea facility of some kind, desperate to aid his daughter, who seems to have an illness of some kind. There’s a military group cleaning house in the area, as well as a group of survivors attempting to ward off the monstrous creatures roaming the halls. What does it all amount to? I have no idea yet, but again, I’m keen to find out more, as there are a couple of threads that are intriguing enough.
In terms of atmosphere, Beneath has a lot of mind-melting stuff going on. The facility is completely overrun with ooze, tentacles, corrupting tar and all manner of disconcerting creatures. One or two moments in the demo had me question my senses, like gentle singing or a crawling creature disappearing around a corner, but the horror feels more reserved and subdued in comparison to the rooting-and-tooting.
The environments make up for this with thick use of blinding darkness, powerful and striking colours like mechanically ill-signalling reds and the like. It has a fierce sense of identity and artistic direction already, which gives me a lot of optimism for what the developers have in store. While I’m yet to see the true Lovecraftian love-in with derealisation and loss of sanity, I’m quietly confident that Camel 101 know what they’re doing in terms of visuals and style.
After an hour slinking through the submerged facility, I hit the end point under the promise of a terrorising figure known only as the Gighath. I’d been told not to fight, only to run, and run fast. Certainly, one way to whet the appetite for more of this dark and decaying universe. I died just the once, but the AI was impressive in using tactical manoeuvres for the human opponents and sheer worrying numbers for the less consciously endowed.
Beneath also features a gun upgrade system similar to The Last of Us, whereby you collect materials in the world, which can then be used to improve specific parts of your weapons. The economy from the demo allowed me to increase the damage output of my assault rifle, but only thanks to some curious exploration on my part. Again, this nails the core tenet of survival-horror by rewarding willingness to explore at the risk of expending resources for potential gains.
I’m left wanting more, which is exactly what a good demo or preview should leave you with. I do hope the final version has more emphasis on the scare factor and horror, but this was a vertical slice that probably doesn’t have the time to show off every possible facet to their fullest extent. Even so, the gunplay and atmosphere have more than enough already to pique my interest.
If you’ve missed that old-school PS2/PS3 era of first-person survival-horror shooters, Beneath is a must for your wishlist.
Beneath will be available on PC via Steam (preview platform), though there’s no current release date.
Developer: Camel 101
Publisher: Wired Productions
Disclaimer: In order to complete this preview, we were provided with a promotional preview build of the game.
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