Limbo
Played on Nintendo Switch | Original Release Date 21 July 2010 | Review Date 27 April 2025
OVERVIEW
I have never had so much fun dying over and over again in a video game. With its macabre and eerie world, devilishly wicked puzzles, and simple yet challenging gameplay, can Limbo stand the test of time as one of the great indie darlings of the last fifteen years?
STORY
Limbo is the story of a young boy who finds himself in an industrial, dystopian nightmare hellscape, and he must traverse a world that is trying to kill him every step of the way. What did he do to deserve such a fate? Who knows? We’re never told why this character ended up in this version of limbo, but something must’ve happened during his life, causing him to be stuck between life and death and forcing him to overcome adversity to gain access to his final form in the afterlife. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a reach in terms of story, but this is a genuine thought I had as I played through the game. You don’t need much in the way of story to enjoy this experience, and in fact, I think it’s a strength of the game that I found my mind wondering, ‘what’s this all about’ during my play through. In a way, the story is your own, based on how the game makes you feel and how you let your mind wander as you move through each chapter. Why is a giant spider after me? How did all this machinery end up here? Who are the other children trying to murder me? Is there any vacancy in the hotel? All thoughts I had during my play though, which kept me intrigued and wanting to know more about this strange character, but the answers to my questions were never resolved. Limbo allows the player to fill in the gaps of the story, or simply ignore it and just play the game.
GAMEPLAY
Open up the in-game menu, and you get three images showing you how to play. Walk left and right with the directional pad, jump using a button, and grab an item to push or pull it with another button. That’s it. But it’s how you use these mechanics to overcome the puzzles and challenges in the world that make this simple setup rather challenging. You start the game by waking up in the middle of a very creepy forest. No explanation of how you got there, or even where you are. You then move to the right until you come to your first obstacle and puzzle. The first series of challenges are mostly designed to help you understand the mechanics of both the puzzles and the platforming. You’ll find yourself sliding down a hill, and at the bottom is a pit of spikes. So you jump over them. You come across a ledge that you can’t reach, but there is a cart on wheels below it. So you grab the cart, pull it to the right position, climb on the cart, and voila, you can now reach the platform and continue on your merry way. You come across a pond and a boat. You jump in the boat, and your momentum propels it forward. All very simple, again designed to help you understand the mechanics of the game. I’ve said this before in my review of Animal Well, I love this type of game setup. No instructions, just plop the player in the world and trust them to figure it out. To me, that’s the essence of a great game. Of course, as you progress, the platforming challenges become more complex and the puzzles have more layers and dynamics to challenge your thinking and gameplay skills. My favourite series of puzzles in the game take place in a flooded environment where you have to figure out how to manipulate water to raise and lower blocks that you need to jump on to move up the environment. At one point, the water starts to flood the environment, and you have to place a crate at the right position so that it rises with water, through various breaks in the flooring, and provides you a platform on which to jump so you can get to higher ground. It sounds rather simple, but the developer got the timing of the water rising and your window of opportunity to escape drowning so tight that it causes a lot of tension. It made me feel like I was cheating death throughout the game, a fitting theme and feeling for a game titled Limbo.
You’ll also encounter various creatures and humans during your journey. Early on in the game, you are chased by a giant spider that you have to defeat in stages. Meaning, during the first encounter, you’ve got to figure out how to get past his sharp legs without getting brutally stabbed. Then, a few chapters later, the spider is chasing you through a section of the forest, and you have to get your platforming just right to escape it. You finally get your revenge on the spider in such a satisfying way that I won’t spoil here, but I audibly laughed when I finally killed it. Some of the puzzles repeat, but there is enough variation that it doesn’t get too repetitive. However, there is one series of challenges that I just didn’t like. At certain points throughout the game, you encounter a mechanic that effectively takes away control or inverts the directional movement of the character. This puts you on autopilot and forces you to retread certain deathly obstacles or platforming by making you get your jumps just right without much control. I didn’t mind this the first couple of times, but it definitely repeats way too many times and takes away from my enjoyment of the game.
It’s worth noting that physics plays an interesting part in the game. Some puzzles require you to have a certain amount of momentum to solve them, for example, the speed of your character or how and when you move objects. I think the developer got the physics just right with this one. The gameplay doesn’t solely rely on the physics, but it does add a layer of complexity and fun to the game.
My favourite part of the game, and the main reason I would suggest that anyone pick up and play it, is the gruesome and hilarious deaths that happen throughout. I know I shouldn’t laugh at a young kid dying over and over, but it was just too funny, especially when the physics are involved. Mistime a jump and you’ll be impaired by a spike, and you’ll slowly see the character slide down the spike to his demise. Fall into water, and you’ll see the character struggle to breathe and gasp for air until his lifeless body sinks to the bottom. Find yourself not able to outrun a blade saw, and you’ll be dismembered, watching as your body parts fly across the screen in different directions. The game makes dying fun. It’s like a sick reward for your failure, that, ironically, takes the sting out of dying and having to start a puzzle over. We’re not talking Mortal Kombat levels of gore, but just enough gore, that’s enhanced with the graphic style and sound, to make this a unique aspect of the game that I enjoyed! Not sure what that says about me?
GRAPHICS
I played Limbo on my Switch OLED, and boy oh boy, is this a perfect game for that system. The game is a mixture of black, white, and greyscale colours which are super crisp and contrast perfectly on the OLED screen. The majority of the environment is silhouetted black, with pops of white and grey to add definition. It’s all very stark and minimalist, like a black and white film from the 1930s. I like how the designer makes the character’s eyes bright white dots on his silhouetted face, like flashlights of his soul guiding him through the limbo hellscape. There is a particularly great effect when you have to go down a completely pitch black area and the only way you know where you are is by following the character’s eyes shining through the darkness. Most of the environments are sparse and forbidding, but there are a couple of standout areas that add variety. One of my favourites is when you come across a large “HOTEL” lighting sign. Some of the letters are unlit, and you have to figure out how to get passed the broken electric circuit within the lights without getting zapped. This set piece adds a level of surrealism and is completely juxtaposed with the other areas of the game. There is also a great use of camera work as it pans in and out of the landscape to heighten and lower tension. The developer really wanted to show off the art style and uses the camera at just the right time to allow the player to take in the surrounding areas.
MUSIC / SFX
Just like the rest of the game, the music in Limbo falls into the minimalist category. From the start, there is simply atmospheric white noise mixed with wind and the sound of your character’s footsteps. More sounds are introduced as you slide down pathways or climb up and down ropes, jump into a boat, and hear the water ripple as the boat moves through it. All the sounds are matched perfectly with the environment they are in and work to draw your attention to something you need to interact with or escape from. The sound plays its part to bring this mostly dead world to life at the right times. Occasionally, there are swells of music that provide a haunting and, weirdly, comforting feeling that punctuate your progression. And when it comes to the deaths, the sound is so delicious, it really makes them so much more impactful. It’s gross-sounding when you land on spikes. You don’t see the blood, but you hear it. The same goes for when you’re killed by a buzzsaw, you hear every limb being cut off and the splatter of blood as it flies through the air and hits the ground. Just so awesome. Play this game with headphones - it’s worth it.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
I know I’m late to the Limbo party, as this game originally came out in 2010 as part of the Xbox Arcade on the Xbox 360. I don’t know why I didn’t play it then, but it’s most likely because of the simple graphics that I didn’t give it a chance. I’m sure I was only into big open-world games with 3D environments at the time. But I’m glad I finally got over myself and gave this game a chance. I managed to pick it up on sale for around £1 in a recent eShop sale - a total bargain. The game is on the shorter side, which isn’t a bad thing, but if you're looking for value for money, you might not want to pay full price for this one. At the time of writing this review, in April 2025, you can play the game as part of Xbox Game Pass or with your PlayStation Plus membership, and I’m sure you can pick it up for dirt cheap on Steam. If you’re like me and haven’t played Limbo yet, do yourself a favour and dive into this disturbingly beautiful and macabre little indie game that is just as much fun to figure out the puzzles as it is to die. Oh, and don’t worry about all the discourse around the ending of the game, it is what it is, and just like the start of the game, it doesn’t provide you with anything more than simply ending in the same way it started, without any explanation.
OUT OF SYNC GAMING REVIEW SCORE | 7 out of 10
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