Out on Wednesday the 21st of July for XBLA, PlayDead’s Limbo is an experience you won’t find anyw🍃here else. You know that feeling you get after a really intense, really weird dream? You know, that uneasy sense of dislocation as your head continues to reel from the impact of what you perceived the night before? That strange, swirling feeling of an unsettling significance, the source of which you can’t quite put your finger on? Limbo is dripping with that.

It isn’t just a platformer. It isn’t just a puzzler. It’s both of those things, but it’s also much, much more. It’s also a deeply affecting, at times absolutely terrifying emotional experience, with real weight and a subtle but densely-layered narrative. Things won’t look the same after you’ve finished it🔯. Here’s why.

It has an aesthetic you can drown on

I promise you, you have not experienced anything like Limbo in the video game medium. Maybe in film, if your cinematic tastes lean towards the seriously left-field, but in terms of the look, sound, and most importantly the feel of the world you’ll explore, Limbo is on a level you haven’t imagined before. Forget the fact that it’s 2D. That’s irrelevant. Limbo exists in a world as cohesive an🔥d well-realisedꦏ as any in gaming, but far more textured and complete than most.

Above: The sense of nightmarish isolation is there throughout every platform and puzzle