End of Abyss Makes a Fundamental Metroidvania Mistake

Platform: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S | Developer: Section 9 Interactive | Genre: Third-person sci-fi horror metroidvania | Length: 12–15 hours

Background: A Genre Mosaic From Little Nightmares Veterans

End of Abyss arrives from Section 9 Interactive, a studio that includes former creators of Little Nightmares—and that lineage shows in the game's texture. The creepy world carries the same unsettling materiality. But the inspirations don't stop there. Towering bosses with punishing attacks evoke soulslikes. Fixed camera angles call back to Resident Evil, particularly in moments when you hear something monstrous in a room before you can see it.

At its core, though, this is a third-person metroidvania: you shoot monsters, solve environmental puzzles, and regularly unlock upgrades that expand exploration. The best parts are genre staples executed well. The problems arise when those influences fail to blend—and when one specific flaw breaks the player's trust.

The Setup: Cel, a Silent Technician, and a Facility Gone Dark

You play as Cel, a voiceless technician sent to investigate a facility that has gone dark for unknown reasons. Other characters, each in hazmat-like coveralls, attempt to help solve the mystery from elsewhere. The massive facility reveals itself floor by floor, section by section.

The loop is familiar: unlock new items, backtrack to solve puzzles, uncover secrets, and eventually finish the game. End of Abyss didn't invent this formula, but it uses it well—consistently giving strong incentives to retrace steps and recall old routes that were inaccessible until milestone story moments.

What Works: Exploration, Upgrades, and the Power Climb

This tried-and-true exploration is the game's strongest asset. Fighting through tough areas with twin-stick shooting and survival-horror-limited resources to uncover explosive charges (which destroy weak walls and floors) or a grappling hook (which pulls down previously inaccessible ladders) opens huge new avenues, including many optional areas. Most upgrades are only found in optional areas, so seeking them out becomes a constant priority—especially to stay ahead of the punishing enemies shambling through most corridors.

Physically, the explorable space is well-designed. Much of the facility must be charted manually, with valuable maps hidden off the main path that reward effort with a full view of a given area.

Around the halfway point, the power climb clicks. Guns become more plentiful and powerful—a shotgun, rifle, and flamethrower unlock—though none compare favorably to a fully upgraded pistol with infinite ammo. Dodge timing improves. After a few early bosses cause fits, several later ones fall in one or two tries each.

The Cardinal Sin: When the Map Lies

For a metroidvania, a reliable map is not a convenience—it is the contract with the player. End of Abyss breaks that contract.

Due to an apparent bug, a door you've opened will still register as locked on the map. A door for which you have the key won't display the icon the game uses to say, "Come back! You can open this one now." These are visual bugs only—doors still open if you have the right key, and some doors marked locked on the map are wide open in reality. But the effect is corrosive: you must juggle two versions of the game's intricate areas in your head at once—the world according to the map, and the world according to reality.

This issue cropped up more than a few times before the credits rolled. A patch released just before the final boss scrubbed out other issues entirely, but the map problem remains. Once you realize you can't always trust the map, navigation becomes more stressful than some boss battles.

Combat and Atmosphere: Tense, Beautiful, Repetitive

The world itself is gorgeous. The underground facility comes alive through midnight-blue art direction, giving every inch an eerie, unsettling feel. Cel can often hardly see more than a few feet ahead—and it's not long before that becomes unfortunate. The game feels like a haunted house in sci-fi clothing. Enemies are closer to mutated zombies than ghosts, but the air of disconcerting stillness is constant.

In combat, from a certain range, Cel's shots are mostly spot-on thanks to a soft auto-lock. Get too far away, and targeting depends on manual aim—giving fights that classic horror thrill of missing shots you needed to land. It's good tension, even if some under-the-hood randomness seems to decide shots in ways that may frustrate others.

Body horror pulls from Alien, Event Horizon, and The Thing. Most enemies—noodly organic masses spilling from their heads—behave like mindless drones: running or stumbling toward you, clawing, latching onto your face, or stinging. Keeping a safe distance without losing aim assist becomes a constant tense calculation.

Early on, every encounter feels like a fight for life. The gun is underpowered, enemies are numerous and quick to close gaps, and cramped quarters plus fixed camera angles add purposeful friction. Some frustration comes from the soulslike inspirations—and some of that is taste. For those who don't enjoy being beaten by a single boss for long stretches, a few early fights will test patience.

The Clash: Soulslikes vs. Horror

Spoiler warning: This section discusses gameplay structure and enemy behavior, not plot endings.

Managing a pack of enemies, especially mixed types, is often very hard early on. The first time a room swarms you with a specific onslaught, it's scary. But when you reach a restoration pod—a save point and stand-in for Dark Souls' bonfires—enemies reset. That means retreading steps through areas. While exciting for newly opened avenues and hidden upgrades, the scare factor evaporates when the same enemies do the same things as before. There are only so many times the monster can jump out of the proverbial closet before someone sleeps through it unphased.

As a result, End of Abyss stops feeling like a true survival-horror experience and starts feeling more like a darker, creepier Metroid. That concept is likable—but if that's the goal, a more reliable map system is crucial. Getting lost because of faulty in-game hints happens too often for a game so reliant on exploration as its key ingredient.

Bosses and Endgame: Similar Challenges, Inconsistent Thrills

A few bosses are memorable; several others are too similar to stand apart. Most want to clobber you up close or from range, heaving a fleshy appendage with just a half-second's notice per attempt. Each boss has its own look, and a few have unique gameplay wrinkles, but several hardly feel different from one another. Once you learn to exploit the dodge-roll's invincibility frames, you'll be fine.

The 13-hour experience (within the stated 12–15 hour range) is inconsistent: long stretches of excitement broken by regular beats of annoyance. When rolling along—finding major and minor upgrades, unlocking crucial shortcuts, taking on hordes in nail-biting combat—it's genuinely lovable. But too often, the map misleads, encounters lose luster through repetition, and early difficulty spikes leave you flustered.

What It Means for Players

End of Abyss pulls from so many inspirations that it lends the game much of its appeal. It's the rare sort of game where super-fans of Dark Souls, Resident Evil, and Metroid could each come away with something different they enjoyed. But even if a patch fixes the map's reliability, the same blend of influences hampers some parts—none more than the repetitive soulslike encounters that reduce horror elements to mere aesthetics.

For now, the game sits at an impasse: a beautiful, tense, occasionally brilliant metroidvania undermined by a broken contract with the player. The map may be fixed by the time you play. If it is, you might have a better time than this reviewer did. If not, you'll be juggling two versions of reality—and one of them will be lying to you.