Every time I open a new game, I go to the settings. Not just to adjust the brightness, volume, and subtitles straight away, but to check out the controls. I like to get an idea of what each button does before jumping into it, and I can also learn a lot about what type of game I’ll be playing based on its controls. What immediately stuck out to me about After Us were its peaceful controls — the left trigger creates a “burst of life,” the square button prompts protagonist Gaia to sing, and the PS5’s touch pad is used for petting and greeting animal spirits. This tells you straight away what to expect from After Us – you’ll be interacting with the Earth in ways you don’t in other games.
After Us is a game, of course, but it’s very much a rumination on humanity and our ability to be both destructive and vulnerable. You play as Gaia, the spirit of life, on a quest to restore life to a broken, barren, desolate, depressing Earth. After Us takes place, well, after us – after civilization is gone due to its own failures and destructions. Gaia gives Earth a second chance, and one wonders if humanity truly deserves it.
To reach the vessels, animal spirits you’ll return life to, you’ll platform through varying levels. There are some constants between levels – Gaia can double jump and dash forward from the start. Most levels will feature rails to grind on, and at its most basic After Us is a very competent platformer. Traversing levels with Gaia is fun, but I did take a while to get a good grasp on her movement. She can dash almost too far ahead with the right trigger ability, but also greatly loses momentum when double jumping (a staple of the platformer genre). I often either overshot platforms or misjudged distances and fell short.
Some levels have their own unique platforming elements. In a city under construction you’ll dash through TVs to teleport platform to platform. In the deforested national park, you’ll bring the spirits of trees back and use them to launch Gaia up and cover vast distances. Each level’s uniqueness adds nice variety, but because the levels can be taken in any order, the abilities are unique to their specific levels for the most part.
The early levels in urban areas stuck out to me the most. I think some of the game’s best platforming is found in its first few levels, and the levels contained some of the game’s hardest hitting commentary. Some NPCs wear TVs on their heads, looking like robots from Saga, while others are too distracted by screens to even notice Gaia. The national park level, with its array of tree stumps and saw blades trying to attack Gaia, is a highlight for me. I also enjoyed the underwater sections and exploring Earth’s oceans.
One level I absolutely couldn’t stand was trudging through a landscape resembling a landfill. After Us‘s “countryside” level is a vast open space filled with trash that buries people beneath it. Black sludge rains from the sky as Gaia tries to find cover. I understand the obvious message being sent, but from a gameplay perspective, completely stripping away all platforming was not a great choice. You’ll mostly just run through the level with the right trigger. It’s long, tedious, and unfun.
Platforming isn’t all you’ll do, however. There is something resembling combat in the game – unfortunately. Gaia will often find herself surrounded by devourers, the remnants of corrupt humans. They’ll mob her in an attempt to siphon her life force and you’ll use the left trigger or bumper to throw your heart — the world’s life energy — at the devourers to purify them. These sections would interrupt the platforming and just feel tedious – I didn’t want to play After Us for one-button repetitive fighting, I wanted it for tight, fast-paced platforming.
After Us isn’t without its technical hiccups. Playing on 60FPS performance mode, the game sometimes struggled to maintain a consistent frame rate. Switching to fidelity mode – 4K resolution at 30FPS – definitely helped, but didn’t eliminate the problem. The game also will randomly pause to load, sometimes while Gaia is in mid-flight, making you wonder if it’s frozen.
Most damning was when I lost my save file and had to restart the game. I was platforming throughout a level about six hours in (of an eight-ten hour game) when the game crashed for the first time. No problem, I thought. Happens. When I reopened the game, I was greeted with an error message saying my save file was corrupted and deleted. I’ve reached out to the development team for insight, but for now I’m left to wonder if this was an unfortunate coincidence or an issue that might happen to other After Us players.
I was enjoying my time with After Us up until, well, all my progress was stripped away. It’s a fun game that combines a haunting aesthetic with solid platforming to present an all-too-real glimpse into what the future may hold. Its commentary really hits home, with global warming, deforestation, oil spills, and other ecological disasters threatening our planet. However, strictly as a video game, After Us might fall into the camp of “fun but forgettable.” Its gameplay is solid, but it doesn’t anything other platforms have already perfected. You’ll enjoy your time with After Us, but, with how stacked this month and year are, I don’t know how much of a memorable impact After Us will truly have.
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