Another Lovecraftian adventure, and where else to have cosmic horror if we’re unable to join Bezos in space? The ocean. That’s scary enough as it is, but throw in some unidentifiable leviathan, a mutated crew, mercs intent on covering everything up with a big slap of clusterfuck, and our diver Noah is having a spot of bother. Welcome to Beneath.
A teeny bit like Still Wakes the Deep, the Amazon show The Rig, and some good old-fashioned Half-Life, this Beneath preview is based on a section a little further into the game that’s due out sometime this year. While the game has the ambience of the first two references, it’s more of a full-on FPS, as if you’re not culling your former colleagues, you’re delving into bullet ballet with the mercs.
Bear in mind that this is a preview build; some aspects immediately need polish, and one punk-rockin’ elephant sitting in the corner, bathed in neon. We’ll address them in a sec, not by name, mind. The level design is excellent and for an industrialised space, is not as samey as one might imagine. The general feel is pretty decent, with just the right lighting and atmospheric vibes to set the tone. It does feel a little washed out, however, and I found removing the lens effect and getting rid of some of the extras made it suited to my tastes.
After it becomes clear that you’re a hero out of their depth, within about two minutes of starting the Beneath preview, the ‘zombies’ arrive in time for you to decimate them with your broad arsenal. Starting with a funky pistol, crowbar, machine gun, and, I think, a shotgun, the first go-to weapon is the nearby fire extinguisher. It almost becomes immediately apparent that ammo is very, very scarce, and depending on which enemy you are fighting, melee isn’t going to be a solution.
Fire extinguishers blow up pretty good and are great for crowd control; however, taking out enemies with the variety of guns on show is a lot of fun, and it’s a shame that there simply aren’t enough bullets to go to town on everything. The undead are slow and easy, ripping off limbs with a shotgun, or using the same tactic for hangy, tentacle thingamabobs. My immediate issue was the mercs.
It’s not that they’re uber elite, but they have grenades, there’s more of them, and already there’s hardly any ammo, and my checkpoint has me begin with one bullet in my pistol, none in my automatics, and a handful of shells for the shotgun. After countless tries of getting close and being shredded by bullets, grenades, and inadvertently being blown to bits by fire extinguishers, I’m through, and now I have to solve door puzzles and redirect power. Wait a sec… what’s that in the water…?
Back to Beneath’s elephant, and that is the speed. Dismissing the days of playing Quake with minimal settings at LAN parties to burn through stages relatively untouched, I’m not keen on fast FPS, preferring slow and steady to win the race. However, the aiming is infuriatingly slow, and with so many games now introducing dashes and jumps, I found myself missing these while I took aim. I’d ramped up the sensitivity to the max, just for a decent response, and that was both with mouse and keyboard on a gaming PC, and using the stick with the Steam Deck.
On the flipside, despite a few judders when waves of enemies appear on screen at the same time, it runs really well and is a lot of fun with a big set of cans on. As a Lovecraft fan and old school FPS veteran, I believe Camel 101 has a cool IP here. It’s not trying to introduce anything particularly new with gimmicks or technical aspects to make you moist other than the salty seawater, but the overall balance (outside of the aiming) is excellent and gives a few shivers when thinking about that first time playing Half-Life.
Beneath will be available during the Steam Next Fest to play, and I encourage you to try it if a fan of FPS that doesn’t involve online play, loot crates, or bragging rights.
