Etherborn | Xbox One | Review

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Three months ago we previewed Etherborn and opined that the indie debut from Altered Matter - helped to fruition by FoxNext and investors on crowdfunding platform Fig - looked set to impress when the full game landed. Now it’s here; an excellent puzzle-platformer which ignores the laws of gravity, requiring you to throw out conventional logic in order to wrap your head (and featureless in-game avatar) around its brain-teasing levels.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam

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Developer: Altered
Matter
Publisher: Altered
Matter
Platforms: Xbox
​One, PS4, Switch, PC
​(Steam)
Players: 1

The voiceless, translucent humanoid you control is born - ethereally so - into a visually immaculate, minimalist world where truly 3D stages are suspended against colourful backdrops of nothingness. As you come to appreciate the elegant visuals, inspired by 20-21st century art, the sultry tone of a disembodied female voice beckons you. Seeking its source is the only way to discover your purpose.

Since there aren’t any hints or HUD element to speak of, getting there is a learning experience, and that’s no bad thing - you’ll more firmly grasp Etherborn’s genius mechanics when you parse them for yourself. Through experimentation and some early deaths, players learn that the effects of gravity apply perpendicular to the surface they’re currently standing on, demolishing the concept of any ‘correct’ global orientation.

With this new perspective in mind, you learn to read environments differently in both obvious and subtle ways, like watching for smooth corner transitions to allow for switching gravity’s axis by walking across shear surfaces, or recognising that you’ll need to snake all the way around a level to reach a location right in front of you. Uniquely, stages must be approached as structures which you manipulate yourself over, under and around.

Etherborn isn’t a game where puzzles are a brief aside that mostly serve to control pacing, rather it is in itself one large-scale problem to solve. With so many modern games simply handing out answers, it can be frustrating when an outlier refuses to stroke your ego, but Altered Matter nip that potential problem in the bud by having every asset project serenity and almost hypnotise the player into a meditative state of calm.

The relaxed mindset it encourages - further helped along by the fact that there are no distracting collectibles or secondary objectives to consider - allows you to ignore any inhibitions and try the sorts of unconventional solutions years of gaming have likely conditioned you to assume won't work - only, in this instance, they more often than not do.

Etherborn isn’t a game where puzzles are a brief aside that mostly serve to control pacing, rather it is in itself one large-scale problem to solve.

Based on our early look at Etherborn, which we now know featured quite a large portion of the game, we wondered aloud how it might evolve in terms of its structure. There are only two additional stages in the final product, both built around the same concept of using light orbs tucked away within them to transform the landscape and allow for your passage. Much the same then, but not disparagingly so, since aesthetic diversity partners with a greater focus on platforming elements and more sprawling real estate to keep things engaging right to the end.

So engaging as to warrant an immediate second playthrough, in fact. Game + mode takes place across the same suite of levels, but the light orbs within them are now deviously concealed from view. This is the first time you’ll really need to manipulate the camera, which closely tracks your movements on an initial playthrough in order to help guide you, whereas in Game + those viewpoints are utilised to mask solutions instead. Again, it’s hard to protest it being unfair that something is hidden off-screen when at the same time you’re serenaded by Etherborn’s gorgeous, equilibrium-maintaining soundtrack.

Our preview also left us with an impression of the game’s story we deemed “vague and introspect”, based essentially on its first half. Having now seen it through, the narrative is largely open to interpretation, but does a good job of getting its abstract concepts across. Our take? A sombre and gleeful exploration of the eternal struggles of the human mind. Fitting, as the game being an effective form of meditation means it also doubles as mental medication.

Etherborn is poignant and not precisely like any other game, perhaps feeling closest to Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s focused body of work (Rez, Child of Eden, Tetris Effect) in the flow state it so easily elicits. It’s a thoroughly lovely, meditative experience that’ll have you sink deep into your seat and slow your breathing while exploring the 3D environments in all of their dimensions. It’s outstandingly clever and effortlessly spellbinding, despite the work it no doubt took the talented team at Altered Matter to get there.

Pros

• Ingenious level and integrated puzzle design
• Gorgeously minimalistic art
• Warm, soothing soundtrack and voice acting
• Beneficial to mental health and acuity
• Game + is a good means of extending longevity...

Cons

• … Yet it’s still over all too quickly

9/10

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For more on Etherborn, check out our interview with the game's Creative Director, Samuel Cohen.