Hidden Deep Early Access Preview: Falling In The Deep
Hidden Deep Early Access is one of those classic 80s sci-fi action horror movies never made. Think of it like vaporwave: it didn’t exist in the 80s, but it feels massively nostalgic.
In the case of this Early Access title from Cogwheel Software (a solo developer!) and Daedalic Entertainment, it has all the hallmarks of a Michael Biehn-led straight-to-video title (affectionate statement, may I add). Funny that, as the Steam page says it was influenced by Aliens, The Thing, Half-Life. You’ll definitely get these vibes.
After 681 days of investigating some anomalies a mile under the sea, communication has ceased with the researchers that set out. It’s your job to perform a rescue mission, but without much in the way of knowing anything about the environment, you’re heading in blind.
The presentation is understandably bleak, and as you’re essentially going further down the spiral, that is, deeper underground, it’s inevitably going to get darker in every way. Hidden Deep is eerily claustrophobic and somewhat anxiety-inducing – in a way that makes gameplay positively tense, but that’s only after you get past the laughing.
I haven’t been in this deep since performing backing vocals in Deep, Deep Trouble during The Simpsons Sing The Blues.
That laughing is based on the physics of the game. It’s not bad, but if you underestimate any descent, your ‘hero’ will practically explode – their appendages flying about in opposite ways of each other, with a satisfying splatter of blood. Now, I’m not the morbid type, but I found it hilarious in this setting. I must stress I wasn’t killing people on purpose, but the extreme reaction their heads had to greet rocks head-on made me chuckle.
But I’m afraid that laughter didn’t last long as Hidden Deep is tough. Besides trying to rescue as many people as possible without losing your own team, or perhaps calculating whether you have enough charges to blast through some rock or the right trajectory for a zip wire, you have to contend with respawning enemies that attack your inactive players. I lost count of the times that I’d lower into a seemingly safe area only to find my crew dead and having to respawn.
Hotkeys are key (ha!) to switch between players and keep them relatively close to each other so that you can save them. Do note that friendly fire isn’t enabled, as shooting a creature through one of your players will result in them catching the bullets in their organs (pssst: that means they die). And that is my biggest issue with Hidden Deep Early Access: the controls.
The hotkeys work, but playing the game exclusively on the keyboard with the mouse for aiming didn’t work for me. I tried my DualSense just in case but to no avail. I believe that a controller would be better for the platforming sections – perhaps not aiming, but overall my player deaths were down to precision. Creating a grapple point to swing with A and D would have been more accurate (and enjoyable) with an analogue stick.
Still, infinite grappling hooks and zip wires are brilliant and one of the standouts for this game. A fixing point can be set practically anywhere, and taking into account physics, if you create too much of a swing and crash into a rock face, your player will die. Again with the gratuitous deaths, and as funny as it was to see them die again, it’s a deterrent for being mindful of ‘swinging points’. Especially as the creatures of the dark react to noises.
By default, I play PC games in 1440p if available. It’s an option in Hidden Deep Early Access, but the developer advises against this due to the small UI. This is very accurate as it’s pretty damn hard to see the text on screen. If playing this on a TV in your lounge, you’d struggle, but as a desktop, it’s nice and crisp, giving plenty of real estate for exploration.
Without a doubt, Hidden Deep would be much better with controller support, in my opinion, and if there is a future tweak on creatures respawning and attacking your inactive players, well… great. The current difficulty settings are perfect, but it just needs an adjustment on those sneaky attacks.
Like I began with, this is an 80s sci-fi movie classic that never was. It has a lot of potential. Despite the initial minimalist approach (there’s a lot of darkness), the gameplay is very enjoyable and features some excellent atmospheric tension due to the lighting and ‘fear of what lurks beneath’. If you like Flashback and the original Prince of Persia, Hidden Deep Early Access is one I’d suggest adding to your wishlist straight away.