Every time I get out of an elevator, I accelerate wildly in case the elevator falls without warning and cuts me in half, leaving the frontal and, all things considered, lower part of my body in place for a second swaying before collapsing into a cloud. of bone and organ divided in two. Don’t laugh: I know you do this too. Kletka doesn’t help: created by in404it’s a horror game reminiscent of Lethal Company and Golden Light, in which you plummet through the layers of an ‘endless’ post-Soviet Gigastructure, scavenging for fuel, parts and food for an elevator that wants to eat you.
The roof of the elevator is a creaking, lipless mouth with a lantern dangling beneath it like a drop of drool. It opens and closes very quietly as you run around with your shoulders hunched, refueling the generator and repairing the machines. You can almost feel the breath in your hair. Needless to say, you’ll want to keep him satiated with edibles stolen from the surrounding world. I spent my 15 minutes in the Steam demo with both eyes riveted to the screen displaying the creature’s hunger and my cursor above the brake lever.
The Gigastructure’s rooms and hallways aren’t much safer than the elevator. They are as dark as a dog’s interior, and chocabloc with traps like land mines and lakes of electrified water. The PS1-era game’s rusty, lichen-like visual direction makes finding resources and items a breeze, and your all-important torch needs to be shut down and recharged regularly. Worst of all, you have to deal with Samosbor. I’m not sure what Samosbor is, but you can’t kill it. If you see a lot of red light, run, run, run as you would a Balrog with mumps.
Kletka’s demo includes a multiplayer mode for up to four people. This means that crossplay with the full release, which will be released later this year, is not possible. You can watch online games and take part in the proceedings when the host finds a vending machine in the Gigastructure, like when you rescue Survivors from hives in Left 4 Dead. As in Left 4 Dead, co-op partners are worth having for a variety of reasons, even if they suck at the game. Teamwork makes the dream work, yes, but Kletka’s Steam blurb offers the nice counterargument that “friends make for good fuel.”