Inside

Inside

Switch - World - Title card.

Developer Playdead Publisher Playdead Published 2016-06-29 Platforms iOS, Macintosh, Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One Genres Active puzzle, Atmospheric, Cinematic platformer, Platformer, Puzzle, Puzzle-platformer Themes Adventure, Horror, Science fiction, Surreal Distribution Commercial

Inside is a cinematic platformer puzzle video game with a horror theme developed and published by Playdead and released for the Xbox One on 2016-07-29, then ported to several other platforms. The game is a follow-up to the company's first game, Limbo, and uses a very similar style of game play.

In the game, you play as a nondescript boy trying to escape from a dangerous regime who appears to have taken over an entire city. They have used some sort of mind control device to reduce the population to zombies and are performing bizarre experiments on them in their massive buildings. The game appears to be set in the 1950s-1960s.

Personal

Own?	Yes. On Steam.
Won?	Yes. With 14/14 achievements.
Finished	2025-03-21. Got all achievements the next day. I needed a hint for the secret ending.

I really like Limbo, so, when I saw the same company made a similar looking game, I was eager to play it. When it went on sale, I bought it and played it not too longer after.

Review

8	7	9	6	5

Best Version: Windows

Good

• The game has fantastic art. The environments are desolate and creepy with plenty of attention to detail, fantastic use of light and shadow, and it has superb character animation. The living characters have very fluid animation, and the jerky animation of the zombies is creepy.
• I like how the camera follows the player's character in a slightly claustrophobic manner, zooming in, panning, and shaking to help add realism.
• The background music really accentuates the eerie feeling of the game.
• Some of the puzzles are head-scratchers, but I didn't think any of the ones necessary to beat the game were unfair.
• The various ways the player can be killed are grisly. I particularly love the blasts from the pressure waves.

Bad

• The game is very derivative of Limbo. Although, this isn't such a bad thing, as that game was also really good.
• Turning wheels is a bit more complex than it needs to be. A simple left and right would have been easier than the system they went with where you try to rotate then in sync with the game. I would sometimes spin the wheel in the wrong direction because of it.
• I found the ending to be a bit underwhelming.
• Getting the secret ending is a bit of a stretch. First, you have to find the second orb, which doesn't have the tell-tale yellow wire to hit at its location. The best you get is the lights in the final sphere room indicating it is between two other secrets, but at that point, you can't backtrack to it. You can also use the achievement's name to help point you in the right direction, but that damages verisimilitude. Opening the vault door requires being quite observant and taking very good notes about something that potentially happened a few hours earlier in the game, or being very tenacious and brute-forcing the combination. I don't like games where brute forcing is an option, as it means some players will actually try it and ruin their experience. Because you don't learn you need to backtrack to the second orb until you have destroyed them all, it's not possible get the secret ending in a single play-through, which means there is no in-universe way to actually save the city. The secret ending also doesn't yield much payout for the work it takes to achieve, it doesn't even give an achievement.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Covers

• 

  Xbox One - Digital.

• 

  Title card - GOG.

• 

  Title card - PlayStation 4.

• 

  Title card - Steam.

• 

  Title card - Switch.

• 

  Icon - iOS.

Videos

Trailer.

Fan theory.

Ways to die.

Longplay - Xbox One.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	A couple of the non-verbal NPCs are female.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There is no dialogue.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Every character is white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Links