The Pale Beyond Critic Reviews

The Pale Beyond is a masterclass in tone and atmosphere informing gameplay. As Captain Robin Shaw, you’ll need to make tough decisions constantly, but this stressful journey is well worth seeing through to the end.

If you’re a frostbite-loving freak like me, The Pale Beyond is the game for you. It makes me optimistic about the future of this niche genre. The amount of research and care is apparent as you play. The opaque gameplay systems draw you into the narrative, but leave you in suspense. If you’ve made it this far in the review, I have to assume one of those things is appealing to you. Play The Pale Beyond; it might just be the best novel you read this year.

The Pale Beyond is bleak and miserable in all the right ways, with a fantastic setting for a survival game.

For a weaker game, dealing with even minor issues might be a deal-breaker, but The Pale Beyond offers more than enough to overcome these quirks. The difficulty is well-honed, forcing players to stay on their toes without verging on frustrating, and the unanswered questions that arise in the story remain engaging until the final revelations. Although the interpersonal component isn't dialed up to draw out tears, solid character writing makes tough choices and failures fall heavy. The Pale Beyond's expedition might encounter a few rough seas, but players willing to brave them can find a journey that is abundantly worthwhile.

Fascinating.

It’s rare these days for a survival game to put narrative and resource management mechanics on the same level, and do both very well. Overall, I think The Pale Beyond tells a captivating story while torturing players into finding the best solutions for keeping their crew alive. The first playthroughs will always be frustrating, but that’s because the game doesn’t prepare players for what’s coming. When all is said and done, The Pale Beyond is an enjoyable experience if you love survival games, but if you’re looking for a purely narrative experience, look elsewhere.

The graphical representation of the individual characters must also be highlighted. The game is not perfect, but it is chillingly captivating in places.

The Pale Beyond has a nice art style and tries to balance an intriguing story and survival gameplay, but the two elements never find common ground, and the technical issues eventually drag the whole experience into the icy waters.

This game is pretty and it’s interesting in the way it presents a dangerous situation through a well-written story. The gameplay is nothing to be celebrated, however, and there are some genuine design mistakes sprinkled in.

The Pale Beyond, for all its flaws and frustrations, still manages to retain a desolate sort of charm, rough edges and all. It isn’t afraid to put Shaw in horrendously painful situations where there’s no good outcome — there’s one exceptionally bleak scenario where you can practically feel the game gleefully milking what’s left of your serotonin. Coming off the ice and making land after nearly 40 weeks of hell really feels like moving between two worlds; the background art and environments are positively unearthly when shrouded in ominous fog and hazy light. The ocean scenes with icebergs awash in pinks and oranges are truly gorgeous, as are the dark, roiling storms. If only the internal logic of the overall plot was a little more cohesive, and a little less patched together, I feel like I would actually return to the Temperance and give it another whirl. As it stands, I’m still choosing the ending where I get to head home and eat a civilized meal.

With those bugs squashed, The Pale Beyond would be a stonking survival game. I love the attention to detail in the story and characters, which makes you want to hang in there not for the sake of beating the campaign, but because you genuinely want to spend more time with the crew - and find out the bigger mystery behind the missing ship. Next time I'm going to try and save every single person, and not just barely make it through with half my crew dead and the other half frostbitten and starving. I think it's going to take me a while, though.