After Us Reviews
After Us is a pure 3D platform game that offers us a devastated world where animals have become extinct. Your goal is simple, to free the spirits of this gloomy world and return the beauty that characterized the Earth. To do this you will have to go through a lot of enemies and areas that seem unreachable, so you will have to use all the skills that are in your hand to fulfill your objective.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Ultimately, the new game by Piccolo Studio, after the excellent Arise: A Simple Story, is another gem that could delight fans of platform adventures, especially if sensitive to the passionate environmental message that the title tries to convey for about 6/7 hours necessary for its completion.
Review in Italian | Read full review
For better and worse, After Us is yet another beautiful but otherwise boring and overly artistic game that does very little to advance the medium.
After Us from developer Piccolo is an interesting title. It tries to create a Journey-like inspiring adventure through gigantic worlds and simplistic controls. Most of what it does works well, especially with its narrative, though the mechanics from its gameplay design sometimes fight against story progression and player engagement. The game can create some frustration with the camera and controls but wins more than it loses.
After Us is a sombre, succinct and surreal adventure with a compelling and emotional tale of sacrifice and healing, tied together by simple platforming gameplay that evolves with each distinct and beautiful new environment. Some control complaints and unnecessary combat aside, it's a memorable journey worth taking.
After Us combines solid platforming with a wonderfully realized post-apocalyptic vision of over-consumption. Even if Memories feel like a missed opportunity, the overall narrative and gameplay make it a worthwhile trip into a morbid future.
Compared to Arise: a Simple Story, After Us represents an evolution. Despite that, the game fails to accomplish its mission and remains a step back from the modern games standards.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Even with the controller rage at times, I still enjoyed After Us and it's easily one of the most original games of 2023. It's emotional, engaging and more importantly plays well on the PlayStation 5 with the DualSense controller. Sure it's a platformer, however with the strong narrative behind it, After Us is not just a game but also an experience… just be warned it comes with a healthy dose of gaming frustration.
With After Us, Piccolo Studio presents platform gameplay with many alternatives, set in a unique version of a desolate world. That's enough for After Us to be considered a good game. But in reality it is more than that. After Us is also a life lesson.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Set in a world that died, After Us is a great example of an industrial apocalypse story done correctly - standing strong in its story, visuals, and ambiance that breath new life into the genre.
A surreal but gorgeous journey through a post-human world
There's a fascinating game hiding in After Us. The melancholy tale of resurrecting a desolate Earth makes for an interesting premise, but it isn't told in a way to make you care much about it. The platforming generates some good moments, but it is also clunky in places due to the physics and lack of explanation in the tutorial. The combat is rather unnecessary and unexciting, but it is functional, while the presentation remains fetching. Patches are still being created to tweak the game, and there is some potential to fix the technical issues experienced in the early portion of this playthrough. For now, it isn't a game that you need to seek out and play if there are other options to tackle.
After Us is a wonderful, dream-like journey through the evils of the world, an epic with a profound storyline and setting that makes us reflect on the path of humanity and everything around it. An excellent platformer, with a respectable duration and plenty of collectables to collect. A must-buy for fans of the genre.
Review in Italian | Read full review
After Us has style to spare and its heart in absolutely the right place, yet the maddeningly finicky controls make traversal feel like a chore – a cardinal sin for any platformer.
Unreliable performance and some underdeveloped mechanics do hurt the impact and atmosphere of After Us, but its intriguing post-apocalyptic world and satisfying movement still make for a worthy adventure.
After Us may appear to be a game with a profound message at first play, but the deeper you get in, the more its grip lessens on the player between drawn out traversal sections, reptitive puzzling, clunky controls and a profound emptiness permeating throughout. While I appreciate what I think the game is trying to say, unfortunately, I don’t think it gets that message across as well as it would have liked.
After Us is a grim yet hopeful tale of what the future of humanity and our planet looks like, given our current actions. Within its dark moments shine a fantastic platformer that shouldn’t be missed. It not only carries a strong message, but it also shows what is possible for the platformer genre on modern consoles.
After Us is an atmospheric platforming adventure that leaves you thinking about the beauty in extinction rather than the horrors. With slick controls, appealing environments to explore and a tranquil nonintrusive soundtrack, fans of titles like Journey will likely enjoy the exploration of a surreal and desolate world of post-human life.
A chilling fever dream of dystopian hope, After Us takes the mechanics of an atmospheric puzzle-platformer and uses them to create a beautifully unsettling experience that feels a little too real. Its satisfying traversal challenges through gorgeously rendered wastelands provide plenty of engaging gameplay moments for platforming fans, though its relentlessly oppressive environments may prove too harsh for some. Haunting and immersive, but definitely not for the faint of heart.
After Us is a game of contrasts. A game where the harsh grays and pollution of its desolate landscapes contrast with the gorgeous rays of light and greeneries summoned by its protagonist. Where its unwelcome setting contrasts with its easy-going gameplay loop. It’s also a game where the decent gameplay loop contrasts with its excessively on-the-nose story.