There’s no real way to trust snow.  It looks all light and fluffy and happy but underneath there could be anything.  Generally the worst that might happen is a nasty wrenched back from maintaining balance on unexpected ice, but the hunter in Until the End fell right through an opening into a deadly cave.  Heading back up isn’t going to work so the only option is to seek out an exit, which is a problem seeing as the entire place is trapped and patrolled by exactly the kind of vicious creatures you wouldn’t want to meet in the dark.

Unto the End is a side-view adventure with fast but deliberate combat.  Exploring the caverns is just as dangerous as the fighting, seeing as the hunter is missing a good number of the superhuman abilities most games take for granted.  He’s got a good, normal jump, and takes damage from falling too far, so you need to treat any drop over two feet or so with a little care.  He’s also got a combat roll, which is great for dodging past an enemy and absolutely a terrible idea to try to add a little extra distance to a jump over a gap.  When the hunter gets injured he can also start bleeding, and eventually if not tended to properly he’ll bleed out.  Thankfully herbs to slow the bleeding are fairly common early on, and the bonfire resting points allow him to fuse herbs together into a single healing potion.  You do need to be careful in the depths of the cave, blocking and dodging attacks while waiting for the right time to strike, but Unto the End isn’t going to eviscerate you for small mistakes and checkpoints are common.  It’s hard, but it’s a polite-hard.

Unto the End released today on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and Stadia, and has a brand-new trailer to celebrate.  I’ll admit to only playing a bit so far but for some reason I keep thinking it’s the dark-fantasy sequel Out of This World/Another World never saw.  Check out the trailer below to see just how difficult it is to climb out of a snow-covered cavern.