Horror Game Eclipsium Can’t Quite Escape the Shadow of More Consistent Peers

The ambiguity of these sights is further driven home by an art style that takes a pixelated filter to 3D surroundings, resulting in hazy, impressionistic sights that communicate the incorporeality of this place.. There are areas that strike that perfect zone between amorphous and defined, much like how David Lynch’s works can end up meaning different things to different people, but regardless, they still undeniably mean something, thanks to consistent symbolism—some recurring motifs here are self-inflicted body horror and those damn, creepy eyeballs. And while I think it being billed as a horror game is a bit misleading, given how rare genuine frights are, this experience is definitely at its best when leaning into making you uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, though, not everything is this evocative. There are definitely stretches that are either surprisingly dull, like a section near the beginning that involves navigating wooden scaffolding and then a mine, or lean too hard into a broad type of “psychedelic” imagery that doesn’t evoke much more than “whoa, that’s trippy, man.”

And at risk of sounding like a real meathead, like a real ignoramus, there’s a big problem that exacerbates this: your character walks so damn slow. I’m aware this is the same complaint lobbed at lots of genuinely interesting games like Gone Home or What Remains of Edith Finch, and is basically where the deeply stupid term “Walking Sim” came from, but in those cases, you’re almost always listening to either a narrator, internal dialogue, or some form of audio log, like a podcast keeping you company during a stroll. By contrast, this game has absolutely no dialogue, so when its visuals aren’t popping and you’re moving at the speed of someone who needs a hip replacement, things can get a bit dull.

This slow movement speed also leads to the game’s biggest problem, which is that some of the puzzles are a real chore. Now, not all of these situations are bad; there is a cool adventure game-style stretch where you have to find items in a dilapidated fishing village, or a nested sequence that involves entering a series of painted worlds in a clever order. You also get some disquieting self-mutilating powers, like a blade arm, which opens up a few additional ways to interact with the world more than just picking up and moving things.

But in the handful of sequences where the puzzles are either overly obtuse or simply involve a lot of walking from point A to point B, the glacial movement speed grinds the pacing to a halt—this isn’t a long game, about three to four hours, but it would be a lot faster if you could move at a reasonable pace for some of these sections.

Granted, there are plenty of times when this deliberate walk speed feels like the right choice, like when sightseeing in hellish canyons and abandoned cityscapes. Unfortunately, though, there are some dry stretches where the vistas aren’t quite this exciting. Much of this would be a bit more forgivable if this experience drove to a memorable conclusion that tied together its disparate imagery, and although there is an arc to its abstract “story,” it’s not particularly powerful or illuminating.

While at its best, Eclipsium is dream logic in playable form, its high points are dragged down by lackluster puzzles and some far less interesting treks through dry landscapes. In the end, it’s the kind of game that will probably play best in short clips on social media, where its eye-catching art style and occasional clever turns will more or less have the same power they do in the context. Instead of coming across as consistently evocative, the game’s terseness can make it feel like it doesn’t have a great deal to say.

Elijah Gonzalez is an associate editor for Endless Mode. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.