Over the last decade or so, French developer Don’t Nod has set itself apart as a studio with a solid grasp on choice-based narrative adventures. Remember Me was unique but ultimately flawed, Vampyr may have had a few missteps, but the premise was solid, the Life is Strange franchise continues to impress with its powerful story beats, and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden told a wonderful story of love overcoming death. So as I settled in to play a couple of missions of their new pure stealth survival game, Aphelion, I was expecting to be hit with their usual narrative dazzle.
It’s too early to say whether I’m disappointed by Aphelion, but it’s certainly not what I expected, given Don’t Nod’s back catalogue. In the main game you’ll play as two protagonists, Ariane and Thomas, though in the preview I only controlled Ariane. After crashing on an alien world, they become separated, and they’ll need to to find each other to survive.
Sadly, the preview missions showed little of the potential narrative, with me controlling Ariane around a series of dangerous environments devoid of anything to take me off the strictly linear path. In the first I had to clamber through the burning, crumbling remnants of the ship, heading for a way out as Ariane called out for Thomas. It was atmospheric, no doubt, but didn’t really showcase much beyond Ariane’s ability to jump, climb, and use a grapple to haul herself up or swing across gaps.
There was a definite sense of scale and peril, which were adequate to keep me engaged, but I died several times from clumsy leaps or due to poor judgement during sections where I thought I had no choice but to try a tricky jump. Moving through the ship, Ariane soon came upon a slick of blood, suggesting that there may be horror elements at play, but there as no time to ponder it as the ship began to come apart, leading to a frustrating but fairly exciting set-piece as I made her climb a sheer wall, avoiding falling debris all the way. It was fine, but hardly groundbreaking stuff.
The second mission in the preview was shorter and less thrilling, ending with the reveal of what I suspect is Aphelion’s primary antagonist, a glitchy serpent-like beast with that weird disjointed animation like the aliens in Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow. The beast is blind, and so hunts by sound, and you must creep around without making too much noise and alerting it.
My issue here is that the monster isn’t really slightly menacing for anyone who has ever played a sci-fi game, and so I just couldn’t feel the tension it was clearly aiming for. I made my way through the cave without much stress or trouble, even with Ariane panting like a sprinting Dachshund the whole way, and then the preview ended and I was left hoping that the finished game brings something a little more exciting.
As I said, you’ll be playing as both Ariane and Thomas then, and more mechanics will likely unlock as you progress. How deep or varied your skill-set will become remains to be seen, but if the onus is on using your resourcefulness to escape the alien hunter, that could add some much-needed tension to proceedings.
Right now, Aphelion is a bit of an odd duck. It lacks the narrative clout I’ve come to expect from Don’t Nod (though it’s very early days), and what’s here feels a little buggy in places. The way Ariane’s hand slips on every single jump, requiring you to press a button to grab the ledge, is also only exciting the first time it happens, and then becomes a little irritating.
Sadly, the preview missions I played just didn’t do much to show off what Aphelion will actually be about, or showcase anything that made it stand out in the stealth genre. It’s certainly a pretty game, and if Don’t Nod nail the atmosphere and sense of tense desolation they might pull off a surprise hit, but we’ll have to wait for the full release to find out.
Aphelion is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
