After Us Reviews
After Us manages to deliver an experience that is largely enjoyable despite its flaws. Loose gameplay mechanics, framerate hiccups, and superfluous combat encounters are mostly offset by solid environmental storytelling, a poignant message, fantastic soundtrack work, and almost rock-solid performance and visuals.
This type of game has been done far better before.
Overall, this leaves After Us as a flawed but intriguing 3D platformer. Its moments of brilliance are great to behold, such as its varied, dreadful locales and those moments where its platforming truly clicks. However, its lack of character and story development and its more frustrating sections do mean that it's not a perfect game - but at the very least its heart is in the right place.
After Us had some lofty goals and it shows but sadly, they didn’t quite reach those highs. Incredible art direction and a dope soundtrack sadly don’t make up for the ‘tacked’ on combat and the very floaty platforming controls. The design choice to make it open world is also a head scratcher because the game absolutely does a poor job of telling players where to go next. I’m left wondering what could have been with After Us, had the combat been taken out I think this would have been a much better adventure.
After Us has a wordless story that doesn't effectively communicate its environmentalist themes and platforming that frustrates with unreliable controls, but it does look fantastic.
After Us is gorgeous and has some important things to say about consumerism, but actually playing it isn't always fantastic.
After Us presents a strong message about planet conservation and wildlife preservation. However, weak gameplay and hollow-level design make the game a running simulator rather than an engaging platformer.
With lofty ambitions and some great elements, After Us lets itself down in as many ways as it triumphs. Gorgeous art direction and an admirable anti-pollution message aren't enough to make up for tedious combat, performance issues, and open-ended level design that plays things a little too loose. If you're itching for an experience like this, there are better options out there, at the very least until After Us' performance issues are addressed. There's the core of an incredible experience here, but it's just not ready yet.
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 is a game with beautiful environment. The game is very relaxing, but feels very empty and aimless at times. It's an okay-ish platformer.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
There are beautiful moments in After Us worth seeing, but they’re buried in poorly directed levels featuring merely adequate gameplay. There’s not enough to consistently grab onto here to really hook most players. After Us has a lot in common with Piccolo Studios’ last narrative platformer but ultimately doesn’t offer the charm or consistently moving story that made that game so memorable.
After Us beats you over the head with paper-thin themes, but between the truly awful platforming and the frustrating level design, it'll be the least of your worries.
All these factors, combined with a stunning soundtrack that ranges between Vangelis and Nobuo Uematsu, make After Us a must-play game in 2023, and deserves a place on any game of the year list–not just one restricted to indies. For all those moments of satisfaction and glee, you’ll also feel uncomfortable, sad, and maybe even helpless–but again, maybe that’s the point. Sometimes you have to suffer to do the right thing.