NIGHTMARE FUEL
Things are as bleak as ever in the psychological landscape of developer Playdead. Their second release, Inside, could easily take place in the same universe as their debut, Limbo. With no exposition or backstory, you’re thrust into the role of a nameless boy fleeing a dystopian world. Guard dogs and armed men chase you through forests, farms, cities, factories, sewers, and laboratories. Why they’re after you remains unclear, but the journey gradually reveals the fate awaiting those who are caught.
As you keep moving to the right, Inside unfolds a wordless narrative with the precision and pacing of a masterfully directed thriller. The result is one of the most intense playthroughs I’ve ever experienced. Along the way, you witness enslavement and brutal experimentation on both animals and humans. Workers stand idle, stripped of agency, until someone quite literally steps in to control their minds. And all the while, you’re hunted relentlessly, terrified that you’ll share their fate.
I can only compare the experience to the silent tension of No Country for Old Men or the suffocating dread of a horror game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent—only without a faltering final act. Like those works, Inside traps you in a waking nightmare where resistance feels futile and escape improbable. The immersion is overwhelming.
That sense of immersion is especially striking in a 2D sidescroller, a genre not typically associated with deep atmospheric engagement. Inside achieves this by cleverly using depth and background space as narrative tools. Disturbing events unfold just out of reach, foreshadowing what lies ahead and ensuring that the game never fully releases its grip on you.
Dogs prowling in the background warn of imminent chase sequences. Elsewhere, the boundaries between foreground and background dissolve entirely: a distant figure suddenly notices you and opens fire, or a massive surveillance machine powers up and scans the environment. This layered presentation adds visual depth and fuels a constant sense of paranoia.
The horror rarely announces itself outright. Instead, it manifests as a quiet, passive-aggressive promise of danger. The game taps into primal fears: agoraphobia in vast, exposed spaces where threats may lurk unseen, and claustrophobia in submerged passages where it’s unclear whether you’ll ever reach the surface again. It’s almost too intense—but never enough to dampen your curiosity. The three-hour journey to the shocking, perplexing ending flies by.
Crucially, Inside is in a constant state of reinvention. Puzzle mechanics rarely overstay their welcome before a new obstacle demands that you reassess what you’ve learned. Controls are limited to a single stick and two buttons—jump and interact—resulting in one of those rare games that needs no tutorials whatsoever.
The tone is relentlessly oppressive, supported by an eerie, minimalist soundscape. When music does appear, it reflects the boy’s emotional state. A pounding, stressful rhythm signals detection, acting almost like an alarm that urges you to think fast and move decisively.
Equally helpful is the boy’s animation. He instinctively reacts to danger, subtly guiding the player. When guards linger nearby, he crouches. When surrounded by controlled workers, he mirrors their posture to blend in. These visual cues give you a fair chance to survive even unfamiliar situations. When he straightens up and the soundtrack swells, it’s time to run.
Inside may be the most meticulously playtested and polished game I’ve reviewed on this blog. It truly never puts a foot wrong. Chase sequences are directed with surgical precision, consistently ending in narrow escapes. When you fail, you often realize it moments before death—a brief, dreadful pause where all you can do is brace yourself. The ensuing death animations are brutal, and I always felt a genuine pang of sympathy for the boy.
Puzzle difficulty is balanced just as perfectly. Solutions are rarely obscure, but they’re satisfying to uncover. Most rely on clear, understandable physics: weighing down pressure plates, using leverage, or manipulating momentum. You reason your way forward, and when it works, the sense of accomplishment is real.
Many puzzles also serve a narrative purpose, subtly inviting speculation. What are the parasitic worms? How do they relate to the mind-control helmets? Why are zombified people herded into trucks like livestock, and where are they taken? Ultimately, the game asks a single haunting question: what went wrong in this world?
Inside hints at extraterrestrial or supernatural explanations, but leaves much unresolved. I love that ambiguity. It transforms the game into a lingering mystery—an unofficial side quest that continues long after the credits roll. Subsequent playthroughs aren’t about challenge, but about absorbing the setting, the background details, and the implications of what you’ve witnessed.
The game stirs something deeply primal. It reminds me of a recurring childhood dream in which I was chased by the police for reasons never revealed. I always felt I was on the brink of escape. Often, the dream ended with me slipping into a stream and floating away—sometimes unseen, sometimes under gunfire. No matter how it ended, I always woke up relieved.
There’s no waking up from Inside. You have to see it through. And its ending left me with thoughts that lingered long after the screen went dark. It may sound corny to bring up dreams, but when a piece of fiction taps into those shared, buried landscapes of the psyche, it’s doing something special. In one of the strongest years for games overall, this “old” indie masterpiece stands as one of my most rewarding discoveries.
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