Liminality as a concept has sort of been run through the wringer by the internet over the past few years. If it isn’t huge games like Superliminal, it’s the expertly crafted Backrooms series by Kane Parsons on YouTube. Now, Liminalcore is setting out to succeed where others have failed in creating an enjoyable liminal/backrooms experience. How does it plan to do this? With microphone replay and a bunch of Pepe statues…naturally.
What Is Liminalcore?
Liminalcore is a liminal walking-simulator from Pakistan-based developers Ashen Studios and Shadow Owl Studios. You are a random, unknown person who wakes to find themselves trapped in an endless Escherian complex of swimming pools, play-places and cookie-cutter housing. With no obvious sign of how you got here, the only reasonable plan is to keep moving forward to try and find a way out, no matter how many slides, ball pits and long ladders you have to deal with on the way.
As you can probably tell from the above description, there’s not much of a storyline to Liminalcore. You’re dumped with almost no ceremony at all into a darkly lit shallow pool and just have to start wandering around if you ever hope to find your way out. In reality, the entire motivation for the game comes from wanting to explore its eerie depths and see what else it can possibly throw at you next.
Making the Most of It
It’s almost a cliché to say it, but with Liminalcore, you’re only going to get out of it what you put into it. This isn’t the sort of game where you’ll be experiencing high-octane thrills, a deep narrative, or even much in the way of actual gameplay. Instead, the entire draw here is the atmosphere the game creates and immersing yourself amongst the desolate architecture, allowing the emptiness and slow pace to draw a shroud of creeping dread over you.
Suffice it to say, not everyone will necessarily ‘get’ Liminalcore. It’s not filled with creepy monsters running you down or screaming memes, and with the slow pace and lack of gameplay mechanics, it’s understandable why some would get turned off at the outset. Luckily, if you are the sort of person willing to meet the game halfway by playing in the dark with a headset on, then you’ll likely find an extremely interesting experience within, if you can actually get the game to run properly at least.
Pretty Places, Poor Performance
It’s easy to see where a lot of the focus has been put on this game. With the Poolrooms, an aquatic offshoot of the Backrooms, you can be sure there’s a big focus on water physics and reflections, and that can play hell with lower-end graphics cards. Even on more mid-range PCs, the framerates are less than consistent. If you’re packing a decent RTX card or better, then you’ll probably be fine, for the most part.
Luckily, the result is a game that looks pretty incredible, if your PC can handle it. This is possibly the best-looking rendition of any of the Backroom concepts in video game form. It has the same clean design as Anemoiapolis, albeit with much less variety of environments but with a huge bump to the quality of the graphics. So, if you’re into the best of the best in terms of graphics, especially water effects, then you’ve found a pretty great testing ground for your next rig.
What Actually Happens?
Most of your time in Liminalcore is spent figuring out where to go to continue the game, and honestly, most of the time, it’s relatively obvious. Sure, you’re trying to enjoy/get creeped out by the architecture, but you’re also trying to figure out if you’re actually exploring new locations or just looping the same places over and over again.
I also have to admit that I’ve not finished the game, mostly because of the aforementioned performance issues, as well as a particular room with a giant statue (prominently featured in the game’s art). Every time I entered the room, everything chugged immensely. For some reason, every exit from the room, other than the one I started in, just led me into the void. I’ve waited a while to see if an update would fix this problem, but so far, I’ve been staring down Michael Angelo’s David for the past 3 months.
The Verdict
Liminalcore is a great game for the right sort of person. If you have a powerful PC and just love yourself some liminal horror in the truest sense of the word, then you’re going to enjoy this. There are no jumpscares or monsters; hell, it’s not much of a game, but a very, very atmospheric walking sim is still appealing if you’re into exploring liminal spaces. That said, the lack of anything to do, huge performance drops, and constant use of Pepe might be off-putting to a whole bunch of other people.
Developers: Shadow Owl Studios, Ashen Studios
Publisher: Shadow Owl Studios, Ashen Studios
Platforms: PC
Release Date: 28 October 2024
Gaming Respawn’s copy of Liminalcore was provided by the publisher.
