Endless Dark Preview

Sleeper colony ships aren’t a new concept in science fiction, but usually the story follows a survivor of something going wrong, or those who discover said ship after something has gone wrong. Well, Endless Dark takes things in a different direction, with you playing as a robot tasked with ensuring that things don’t go wrong! While things inevitably do go wrong… As a psychological horror game with no enemies, I figured this was a good game to check out heading into the darker months of the year.

If you send a spaceship off on its own with a bunch of sleeping astronauts, then who maintains the automated systems? Who makes sure that magnetic storms aren’t scrambling cryogenic systems, or repairs the engines after a meteorite storm? In this Early Access title, it’s one of three robots who, let’s be honest, gets a little lonely as the only (conscious) occupant. You’re given tasks at the start of each “turn” and have to complete them without overworking yourself, as shown by filling your Fatigue and Stress meters.

While the term “turn” is a little misleading, it just means that returning to your recharge station and choosing “end turn” will end the “day”. So, if a cryo pod requires repairing but you’ve just ended the turn, that human will die. See, there’s no telling how long each “turn” is, so there’s not really a better term for it. Similarly, if the engines are offline, the ship won’t move and will put you behind schedule — that’s something Endless Dark doesn’t really explain currently: the ship has a destination. It’s not just flying around space at random, though you do have the option to tweak the course a little bit if the navigation computer shows something nasty heading your way.

Anyway, a turn starts, and you’re given tasks to complete. Maybe they’re urgent, perhaps optional, usually both. So long as the humans are alive and not about to die, you’re probably good to end the turn. But if you try to work too hard and increase your Fatigue too much, it will add to your Stress level, and then your options are to shut down or go insane.

I mean it, those are literally your options, because these robots have mental health issues and very few ways to dampen them. Certain choices you make will cause various Insanity effects such as every object looking like a door, or your shadow moving independently from your body. They are also caused by your Psychosis bar rising, and when that hits the top it’s game over.

Endless Dark does have customisable difficulty settings, so you could have fewer glitches, or make the status of the ship reset between plays. Alternatively, things like more Insanities, or putting a time limit on each turn, if you’d like to make the game harder. This is on top of the Easy, Normal, Hard, and Insane difficulties, and the fact that each of the three robots has their own foibles and preferences.

While the story hasn’t been completed yet, you can play through several chapters and get a feel for things. While as of writing nobody appears to have taken it up, Endless Dark is also set up for modding, so even after the story has been completed I can see how players might want to take advantage of that.

The graphics are simple and effective, which helps sell the Insanities, and while the ship takes a little bit to get used to where everything is, it’s pretty well designed. Speaking of the ship, it is full of suspicious noises which really sells how creepy it would be to be alone in deep space. The music does a great job of being atmospheric without being overbearing about it.

On the whole, Endless Dark is a fun time even for those who don’t traditionally like horror games. With no enemies to contend with, except your robot’s own mind, it can get surprisingly tense despite how simple it appears at first. I’m looking forward to playing more once the story has been completed!