Attention all eyeball eaters, flesh bicyclists, and shooter enjoyers who also enjoy staring into nightclub toilets! I’ve just noticed that survival horror FPS Golden Light is free to keep on Steam… for the next hour only. The offer in question runs out at 6pm UTC today, 24th February. I swear I have only just discovered this. I swear I’m not trying to give you palpitations for the sake of a traffic spike. But if I am giving you palpitations, that’s an appropriate start to your time with Golden Light, “a procedural dark comedy horror game with roguelike elements and an eerie atmosphere”.
Eerie? Do not sell yourself short, video game. Alan Wake is eerie. Golden Light is a game in which you can swallow a bat’s head just to see what happens. The last time I played I was murdered by a sink clog. The whole world is a deforming colon. Trailer! Quickly!
Golden Light is also a particularly revolting take on the archetypal quest to save a damsel. As the game begins, you’re having a nice picnic with a woman known only as She. Suddenly, She is abducted, dismembered and sprinkled across the levels of a hideous meat dimension. Your job is to fight the bosses defending your beloved’s body parts and, well, it all gets very Eraserhead. It makes Silent Hill 2 look like a book of Stephen Fry witticisms about his mother.
I’ve never reached the bottom of the labyrinth or found all the body parts, so can’t offer a conclusive verdict upon the precise overall disgustingness of Golden Light, but even the opening dungeon floors are ickier than most horror escapades. Layouts and weapons are procedural or randomised for maximum foulness. If you don’t know what something does, you can always eat it to experience the effects.
An acquired taste, Golden Light. Definitely the kind of thing you might prefer to sample for free, if you’re at all squeamish about fighting a soft cascade of deerheads or arming yourself with various designations of turd.
If it’s already past 6pm UTC when you read this and you’re all up in my comments thread, whinnying with rage about my less-than-punctuality, then calm down, calm down. Look, here’s a demo for developer Mr. Pink’s latest project Chambers, “a comedic RPG shooter set in the Weird Wild West”. I haven’t tried it yet but it looks slightly less repulsive. Slightly sunnier, at least.
