REVIEW : The Eternal Cylinder (PS5)
Zeno Clash’s creators have come up with one of the strangest plots in gaming history, as well as a fun blend of action and survival gameplay.
The Eternal Cylinder has several redeeming features, the most prominent of which is its purposeful oddness. One thing you can be sure of about the game is that it is unlike anything else you’ve ever played in terms of story, art design, or action. It’s tough to be truly original, especially in gameplay, but this game gets close while also being a pleasant puzzle adventure.
ACE Team, a Chilean studio, has never seemed to be interested in developing conventional games, with their debut offering being the odd first-person brawler Zeno Clash. While the ActRaiser homage SolSerpah was severely disappointing, the one game they’ve produced that’s based on an existing property should not only be their worst, but the source material should be exceedingly strange as well.
We say all of this with awe since there’s nothing more demoralizing, especially for a reviewer than playing a game you’ve played a hundred times before with only a new coat of paint to distinguish it. That’s not an issue in The Eternal Cylinder, where you’re in charge of a tribe of ever-evolving alien creatures trying to outrun a planet-wide cylinder that smashes everything in its path.
As pleasant as it is to play something truly unique, the most important thing to remember about The Eternal Cylinder is that it is also a lot of fun, bizarre or not. The game starts with you controlling a ‘Trebhum’ as it hatches from an egg, only to be confronted with the problem that the cylinder is just behind it and moving. There’s nothing you can do to stop it permanently, although there are a few pillars strewn over the terrain that, if engaged, can hold it off for a while.
Trebums are weedy little critters that look like fuzzy beachballs with just two legs and an elephant-like trunk, so the cylinder isn’t your only worry. The alien world they inhabit is teeming with far more hazardous lifeforms and ones that are just as fragile as you, which you can consume to obtain new skills. Sprouting longer legs, jumping higher, growing suction feet, and being able to snort fire or grow flippers are just a few of the options.
The Eternal Cylinder also has a strong survival element, and you’re urged to seek out other Trebhums, either already hatched or still in their egg, and join them to your family group to aid with puzzles and to fight – with the opportunity to transfer control between any of them at any time. This is necessary because, despite their particular talents, Trebums are readily killed, and replacements are continually needed. Collecting a variety of resources is also necessary, and more Trebums serve as portable inventories.
You must frequently feed and water yourself and your pals, but the game is neither open-world nor linear, with an odd structure that allows you to predict when the cylinder will start moving again. In most cases, you may be confident that it won’t start moving again unless you specifically trigger it, allowing you to leisurely explore the currently delineated area of the game world.
This can include small open-world sections with an entire ecosystem of progressively weird lifeforms, as well as dungeons that are more puzzle or platform-based and allow you to practice working as a team with your other family members.
Despite the stop-start aspect of the game, progress never feels monotonous, as each new movement of the cylinder introduces you to new critters and obstacles. There’s a clear Daleesque influence on the art design and Picasso and ACE Team favourite Hieronymus Bosch. Still, it’s not slavish, and each new creature, from huge perambulatory mouths to strange cyborg-like humanoids, is more unusual and terrifying than the last.
There’s also a clear inspiration from artist Roger Dean since the game looks and sounds like a 1970s prog-rock album cover. From the weird cries of the numerous species to the terrifying crunch of the cylinder itself, the sound design is amazing.
The cylinder and game structure are rich with the symbolism of the cycle of life and the inevitability of death. Still, given the mindless destruction of the gorgeously unique sceneries, you may also read an environmental message into it.
Or maybe the game is attempting to emphasize how necessity is the mother of invention, with brilliant ideas continually in danger of getting steamrolled into a textureless pulp. The game does not attempt to explain, leaving you to draw your conclusions.
The Eternal Cylinder is a significant experience that never overstays its welcome, clocking in at roughly 12 hours. It has problems, but none of them is fatal, such as a slightly restricted camera and the narrator’s essential position not being given as good a voiceover as it needed to be.
The main issue with the narration is that it gives too much away, particularly in terms of dungeon riddles, with ACE Team not likely concerned about asking too much of players who are already bewildered by the game’s bizarreness.
The survival features of eating and drinking are also a touch undercooked. The game lacks a certain physicality and precision in its movement and combat, but that’s less of a problem than it could’ve been because this isn’t exclusively an action game.
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