{"id":43589,"date":"2024-02-13T07:12:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T07:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/atomic-heart-trapped-in-limbo-review\/"},"modified":"2024-02-13T07:12:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T07:12:20","slug":"atomic-heart-trapped-in-limbo-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/atomic-heart-trapped-in-limbo-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Atomic Heart: Trapped in Limbo Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Atomic Heart\u2019s Trapped in Limbo DLC is colourful and eye-catching, and I hated every minute of it. I certainly felt trapped; trapped in a mobile game-inspired expansion that\u2019s repetitive, frustrating, and a chore to complete. As someone who enjoyed Atomic Heart itself a great deal last year and found several things to like about the previous DLC, I am genuinely baffled at how actively I do not <\/em>want to play Trapped in Limbo ever again.<\/p>\n

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While Atomic Heart\u2019s first dose of DLC, Annihilation Instinct<\/a>, explores what happens after the shorter of the main game\u2019s two unfulfilling endings, Trapped in Limbo picks up in the aftermath of the longer one. Respecting and expanding upon both endings is an interesting and commendable approach, even if having these add-on DLC chapters flip-flopping from one ending to the other before anything is resolved makes playing through them feel like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book from front to back.<\/p>\n

In this conclusion, P-3 is left in limbo \u2013 a dream world for the subconscious that P-3 was previously sent to during the main campaign while the Kollektive network controlled his body. Unfortunately, unlike the visits to limbo during the core campaign \u2013 which were creepy, quirky, and used in brief bursts \u2013 Trapped in Limbo drastically overstays its welcome and goes all in on just a couple of gameplay mechanics that are repeated ad nauseam until I was thoroughly nauseated<\/em>. For clarity, it only goes for a few hours \u2013 which is entirely fair for a low-priced add-on. The levels are just not enjoyable, so they drag. Everything here really could\u2019ve been edited into a short prologue level to illustrate P-3\u2019s return to the real-world. The majority of what\u2019s here is just padding.<\/p>\n

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The first \u2013 and worst \u2013 are the sliding levels, which function similarly to Counter-Strike\u2019s \u201csurfing\u201d (which, if you\u2019re not familiar with it, is a long-running mod scene for Counter-Strike that embraces a physics quirk and is based around sliding down sloped platforms). Trapped in Limbo\u2019s sliding levels are finicky, trial-and-error affairs, and they go on and on and on. I can see no other reason for the \u201cpercentage complete\u201d bar at the top of the screen other than to reassure us that there is, indeed, an end to this torment \u2013 if we can persevere to it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s just something off about the way it feels, and I was never able to get a good gauge on how to consistently get the right amount of air off the end of each slide segment. It has nothing to do with jumping, because you can\u2019t. It\u2019s all about the angle \u2013 and yet getting it right is not always possible thanks to the huge spiky obstacles. It\u2019s like playing Tony Hawk with a broken ollie button, and the half-pipe is mined. I didn\u2019t feel a sense of satisfaction getting to the end of these sliding levels \u2013 only relief that they were done and I wouldn\u2019t have to do them again. That\u2019s not a sensation I associate with having a good time.<\/p>\n

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Accompanying the two sliding levels are a pair of climbing ones, which focus on first-person platforming (although they also<\/em> include aggravating sliding sections of their own). These levels are a lot more in line with the moments of first-person puzzle-platforming present in the main game, and they\u2019re certainly a little more straightforward. For instance, it\u2019s quite forgiving when it comes to landing on tiny cubes and detecting clambering opportunities. That said, I still had times where I was cursing the sloppiness of the jumping on a timing-based trap, or reloading my last save after falling into an area it didn\u2019t appear I was supposed to have been able to get into. Like the sliding levels, I have no desire to play these again, either.<\/p>\n