- End of Abyss review verdict: a moody sci-fi horror Metroidvania scoring 8/10
- Development: Built by Section 9 Interactive, a Swedish team of former Tarsier Studios devs
- Combat: Tactical twin-stick shooting with slow-firing guns, dodges, and gadgets
- Length: Roughly 13 hours to reach the credits across half a dozen zones
- Watch out: Pre-release builds showed audio glitches, invisible barriers, and progression bugs
End of Abyss Review: First Impressions
End of Abyss drops you into the rusted ruins of a seemingly abandoned underground base, playing as a young technician named Cell who descends alongside a squad of soldiers. Coated in blue-hued darkness and punctuated only by footsteps and the groan of long-unused doors, the opening hours establish an ominous, oppressive mood that never really lets up.
The game comes from Section 9 Interactive, a Swedish studio formed by former Tarsier Studios developers. While End of Abyss is not a Little Nightmares clone, the atmospheric DNA is unmistakable — these are very different games with very familiar vibes.
Video Highlights:
- Roughly 13-hour campaign across more than half a dozen interconnected areas
- Twin-stick combat with tactical dodging, grenades, and flares
- Constantly expanding map with perspective shifts between top-down and side-scrolling views
- Flawless 60 FPS performance on both PS5 and PS5 Pro
- Final score of 8/10 from the reviewer
If you enjoy hands-off exploration, dense interlocking maps, and horror-tinged atmosphere — think Metroidvania design fused with Little Nightmares mood — End of Abyss is an easy recommendation. Players who prefer waypoint-driven guidance may find it frustrating.
Exploration and Map Design
The exploration loop is where End of Abyss both shines and frustrates. Locked doors, blocked pathways, and unreachable litters of platforms steadily unfurl as you discover shortcuts and new traversal tools. Zones twist in on themselves across multiple levels, and you will study your expanding schematics like a wannabe architect.
| Exploration Feature | Description | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Map scale | Zones twist across multiple levels, constantly expanding | ★★★★★ |
| Shortcuts | Unlock gradually to open fast travel routes | ★★★★☆ |
| Waypoints | Sometimes appear on unmapped floors, hard to track | ★★★☆☆ |
| Door scanning | Manual scan marks interactables on the map | ★★★★☆ |
| Guidance | Extremely hands-off, no hand-holding | ★★★☆☆ |
One recurring pain point: manually scanned locked doors stay marked as locked on the map even after you open them, which leads to wasted trips to doors you unlocked hours earlier. The game is also unforgiving with hazards — the radiated Containment zone chips away at your health, and the radiation-blocking mod is hidden in an easily missable room in a completely different zone.
Expect long backtracking sessions. When End of Abyss gives you a waypoint, it may sit on a floor you have no map for, or behind a keycard you haven't found after hours of searching. This is intentional — the payoff is an Elden Ring-like sense of discovery when a zone doubles in size with a single opened door.
Combat and Enemies
End of Abyss is a twin-stick shooter, and its combat encounters are intense by design. Guns fire slowly, shots are easy to miss, and enemies swarm quickly — success depends on tactical use of your dodge and gadgets like grenades and attention-drawing flares rather than raw firepower.
Wasp-Like Creatures
- Giant flying swarms
- Demand constant repositioning
- Flares help split groups
Corpse Spiders
- Burrow into bodies
- Reanimate corpses as ambush threats
- Watch the ground carefully
Hand-Like Scuttlers
- Fast close-range attackers
- Punish slow trigger fingers
- Dodge timing is critical
Each enemy type feels like it has its own solution, which keeps encounters fresh — though the final enemy type introduced late in the game disappoints, functioning mostly as a bullet-spongier variant with more health rather than a genuinely new threat.
| Combat Element | Feel | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gunplay | Slow, deliberate | Easy to miss shots under pressure |
| Dodge | Essential | Core survival tool against swarms |
| Gadgets | Tactical | Grenades, flares for crowd control |
| Difficulty | Consistent | Still challenging even late-game |
| Late-game enemies | Weaker design | More health, less novelty |
Do not expect to outgun everything. Trading damage rarely works — kiting enemies, drawing them off with flares, and picking your shots is far more reliable than standing your ground.
Progression and Upgrades
Upgrades in End of Abyss are scarce by design, and that scarcity makes every find feel valuable. Weapons are discovered through exploration, rare materials upgrade weapons and health packs, and mods — which grant abilities like radiation protection — are only found in vaults that require boss-dropped keys.
| Upgrade Type | Source | Rarity |
|---|---|---|
| Weapons | Hidden around the world | Some easily missed |
| Rare materials | Scattered in every corner | Required for weapon/health upgrades |
| Suit power | Upgrade path | Enables more equipped mods |
| Mods | Vaults only | Hard to find, boss key required |
| Vault keys | Optional bosses | Not all bosses are mandatory |
By the credits, you will not be overpowered — the reviewer was still getting beaten down late in the game — but every upgrade you scavenge makes a real, tangible difference.
Scavenge Rare Materials
Comb every hallway for rare resources. These fuel weapon upgrades, extra health packs, and suit power increases.
Find Optional Bosses
Seek out optional bosses — they drop the keys needed to unlock upgrade vaults.
Unlock Vaults
Locate and open vaults to obtain mods, including critical ones like radiation protection.
Equip and Expand
Use suit power upgrades to equip more mods, tailoring your loadout to each zone's hazards.
End of Abyss does not throw upgrades at you. One weapon can elude an entire playthrough, and vaults are genuinely difficult to find. That grind is deliberate — each upgrade lands with real weight.
Presentation, Performance, and Bugs
Visually, End of Abyss is a stunner. The blue-tinted fog gives the game a distinct, cinematic look, and the constant play with perspective — shifting between strict top-down, side-scrolling, and everything in between — gives each room and area its own visual identity. Torch-lit scenes in particular look gorgeous on an OLED screen.
| Aspect | Performance | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Frame rate | 60 FPS on PS5 and PS5 Pro | No performance options, none needed |
| Visuals | Gorgeous, dark, foggy | Especially strong on OLED |
| Haptics | Solid | Decent controller feedback |
| Audio bugs | Present | Noted in pre-release build |
| World bugs | Present | Invisible barriers, one stuck-after-boss incident |
The blemishes are real, though. The reviewed build featured audio issues, pathways blocked by invisible barriers, and at least one incident where the player got stuck in the environment after beating a boss and had to replay the fight. Individually forgivable, they stack up enough to taint the experience — hopefully addressed in a day-one patch.
If you are sensitive to bugs, consider waiting for post-launch patches before diving in. The issues found were mostly inoffensive individually but accumulated noticeably over a full playthrough.
Reviewer Checklist and Final Verdict
End of Abyss Review Summary:
- Moody, cinematic sci-fi horror atmosphere
- Twin-stick combat stays tactical throughout
- 13-hour campaign with a constantly expanding map
- Scarce, meaningful upgrades reward thorough exploration
- Bugs and hands-off design may frustrate some players
- Overall score: 8/10
End of Abyss is a moody and cinematic Metroidvania with a tantalizingly dark sci-fi world, tactile twin-stick combat, and a rollicking brain-teaser of a map. It is brutally hands-off at times, but that makes the moments where everything slots into place all the more satisfying. Some bugs taint the experience, yet for Metroidvania fans, this remains a gorgeous, horror-tinged must-play.
FAQ
Q: How long is End of Abyss?
The campaign takes roughly 13 hours to reach the credits, spread across more than half a dozen interconnected areas that keep expanding as you unlock new traversal options and shortcuts.
Q: Who developed End of Abyss?
Section 9 Interactive, a Swedish studio made up of former Tarsier Studios developers. While it is not similar to Little Nightmares in gameplay, the atmospheric vibes are very familiar.
Q: Is End of Abyss a good Metroidvania for beginners?
Not particularly. The End of Abyss review notes it is brutally hands-off — waypoints can appear on unmapped floors, keycards hide after hours of searching, and one critical mod sits in an easily missable room in a different zone. Experienced genre fans will feel at home.
Q: Does End of Abyss run well on PS5?
Yes. Both PS5 and PS5 Pro ran flawlessly at 60 frames per second with no performance options needed. The main technical concerns are bugs — audio issues, invisible barriers, and a stuck-in-environment incident — rather than performance.