“Children of the Sun stumbles on story, but its unnerving hyper violence hits its mark.”
Pros
Ingenious puzzle-shooting mechanic
Haunting visible fashion
Unnerving sound design
Cons
Ends because it will get going
Tired cultist story
In Children of the Sun’s pitch-black world, obsession is an all-consuming vortex that baptizes its victims in blood. It swallows regular individuals and spits out spiritual fanatics who consider they should kill for his or her god. It transforms a woman right into a gun-toting assassin who gained’t cease taking pictures till she’s put a bullet in each single a type of cultists within the title of revenge. There are not any righteous crusades right here, solely our bodies.
That’s the strain at play within the newest sport from writer Devolver Digital and developer René Rother. Children of the Sun is a hyper-gritty tone piece with a sickly satisfying sniping mechanic at its coronary heart. Though it explores concepts about online game violence which are well-trodden in 2024, the quick puzzle-shooter hybrid is successfully unnerving. The violence is uncomfortable, the tough soundscape is overwhelming, the visuals are creepy. And but, I’m drawn to the set off degree after degree, determined to seek out nirvana in a pile of corpses.
Symphony of blood
When the story begins, I tackle the function of a mysterious sniper solely often known as The Girl. Some fast movement comedian cutscenes tease out a mysterious story a couple of nefarious spiritual cult dubbed the Children of the Sun, which The Girl has excellent cause to hate. She units out on a path of revenge, vowing to wipe out derelict complexes crammed with zealots en path to the group’s chief. That journey occurs over round 26 blood-soaked taking pictures galleries that mount in complexity.
But Children of the Sun is way from a conventional shooter. At the beginning of every degree, I sit on the outskirts of a cultist gathering. Sometimes, I’m watching 4 zealots camped out by a fireplace. Other instances, I sit exterior an outpost as a dozen of them maintain watch. Before I hearth a shot, I can stroll in a circle across the scene by urgent left and proper. I can cease to look by my scope and mark a goal to trace their actions completely. It virtually performs like a twisted hidden object sport as I scope out well-hidden cultists.
Every taking pictures leaves me shaken.
Planning is essential as a result of The Girl solely has one shot to get it proper — actually. The purpose of every degree is to take out each single goal with one metaphysical bullet. The second the bullet leaves my barrel, my perspective shifts, and I embody that hunk of lead. Each time I hit a goal, immediately killing them irrespective of the place I strike, I can re-aim from that time and ping-pong over to a different goal. Time slows throughout your entire course of, so two minutes of cautious motion interprets to a couple seconds in actual time. It’s an ingenious hook in the identical vein as Superhot’s time-shooting twist, one which makes me really feel like an undefeatable murderer after I enter a degree and go away behind a heap of our bodies.
The Girl is meticulous in her revenge, and extra twists reinforce that obsession. As my bullet zips by the air, I can maintain down a button to gradual time and make some slight changes to its trajectory. That doesn’t simply assist be sure that I gained’t hit frustrations after I miss a far-away enemy; it lets me enact my vengeance with sick precision. If I wish to put a bullet in everybody’s head, I can guarantee you, that occurs. Later, I can goal weak factors on my enemies to fill a meter that lets me flip my bullet round in mid-air. Those twists permit for some sturdy spatial reasoning puzzles which have me plotting out an ideal route between targets and directing my bullet like a conductor. It’s a symphony of blood.
Devolver Digital
While I admire Children of the Sun’s centered runtime (it solely takes just a few hours to beat), it does really feel prefer it involves a halt simply because it’s selecting up momentum. It solely options just a few different mechanical twists – like with the ability to shoot a hen overhead to achieve a top-down view of the extent — and there are just a few puzzle-like enemy varieties that have to be dispatched in particular methods. There’s simply sufficient right here to maintain every degree feeling completely different sufficient by the top, like a freeway chase scene that has me bouncing between gasoline tanks, however I’m left wanting a bit extra by the point I end its last problem.
Perhaps it’s for the perfect that the story is so quick. Children of the Sun needs gamers to revel of their bloodlust however nonetheless really feel the enormity of that violence. There isn’t a glut of “content” right here that leaves me feeling desensitized to what I’m doing by degree 100. Every taking pictures leaves me shaken; what have I simply achieved?
Tale as outdated as time
What’s much less engrossing is Children of the Sun’s precise story, which performs into drained online game tropes. As I began it up, I noticed simply what number of video games I’ve performed this yr revolve round preventing cults of some variety. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, and Alone within the Dark are all on the prime of that listing. It’s well-trodden territory and Children of the Sun can’t actually do a lot with it inside its minimalist movement comedian cutscenes that really feel like they had been pulled out of a Garth Ennis comedian. I discover myself rolling my eyes at a model of online game edginess that’s grown uninteresting.
Self-reflective meditations on violence-fueled revenge are a dime a dozen …
Children of the Sun is extra compelling when merely taken as a hyper-violent tone piece. It has the identical unnerving vitality current within the movies of Jeremy Saulnier, a director recognized for visceral meditations on violence like Blue Ruin and Green Room. Children of the Sun adopts some oppressive aesthetic selections not not like these present in Saulnier’s movies. It’s a claustrophobic sport, proper right down to the truth that I’m all the time trapped inside a small circle that I can solely navigate in two inflexible instructions.
Haunting visuals promote the discomfort. Children of the Sun incorporates a darkish and fractured artwork fashion. It’s like I’m trying on the world by a thermal scope, lowering actual individuals to blips of warmth to be simply aimed toward. Levels are bathed in deep grey and purple, whereas enemies have a brilliant golden sheen. They look much less like people than trophies — a reward to be claimed upon profitable kill.
Devolver Digital
The heavy sound design makes me really feel even sicker. It’s not a lot the crack of a bullet colliding with a cranium that makes me jolt every time; it’s the droning electronics that seep into my eardrums. There isn’t a lot music right here as a chaotic onslaught of distorted synthesizers. They bury the world in a wall of harsh noise; my Steam Deck audio system sound like they’re on the verge of shorting out as peaking audio sputters from them. It’s correctly grotesque; the sound is as thick because the blood I’m spilling.
Self-reflective meditations on violence-fueled revenge are a dime a dozen in a post-Last of Us panorama. Children of the Sun doesn’t transfer that dialog ahead in a significant approach, but it surely nonetheless makes an influence. It’ll go away gamers obsessing over each tiny element of their homicide spree till they press Quit and sit in jarring silence.
Children of the Sun was examined on PC and Steam Deck.
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