Apollyon

P.L.U.T.O RESEARCH DIVISION, 1979

G.A.T.E was supposed to be studied, not entered. It was entered anyway.

Your team pushed through into somewhere that does not follow the layout it was built on. Corridors repeat. Rooms exist that weren't in the last briefing. They want you to explore deeper than the last expedition even though you barely made it back.

THE ASSIGNMENT

The nearest exit gets your team home. But you’ll keep getting sent back.

P.L.U.T.O doesn't send teams in to come back early. The deepest exit is the only one that ends this. Everything before it is just how far you got before you almost died.


TRUST NO ONE

Somewhere below G.A.T.E, something learned to sound like one of you. Move like one of you.

It walks like the person it copied. It behaves like the person it copied. It responds like the person it copied. It doesn't strike when the group’s scared or falling apart. It strikes once everyone's stopped counting.

You won’t even notice when someone's missing, you've already been standing next to the thing that took them.

DON'T SPLIT

Staying together keeps you sane, but it’s hard to keep track of 6 people

Fall behind, get separated, or push ahead alone, and your own senses start working against you. Movement in your peripherals that isn't there when you look at it. Voices in the walls misdirecting you.

The longer you’ve been away from your group, the less you can trust reality, if you’re even looking at it.


WHAT'S KNOWN DOWN THERE

The Mimic - copies a person, their movements, their habits, their responses let alone their voice. It doesn’t just hear you, it understands what you said. You won’t know it’s not your friend, but if you do, it’ll know you do.

The Mannequin - frozen in place the instant it's observed. Faster than anything you’ve ever seen and best hope the lights don’t cut out.

Insanity - the longer you're alone, the less reliable your own senses become. You might not even be able to sense reality itself anymore. Voices in the wall trying to misdirect you.

1-6 player co-op - Join a friends lobby, build a team that will work together and provide each other company.

Handmade levels, stitched procedurally - best of both worlds, large library of handmade sections with random elements stitched together procedurally so you wont be exploring the same backrooms every time.

THE LOOK & OPTIMIZATION

Low-poly PSX style geometry and low-resolution textures, lit by lighting the old games would have never touched. Optimization has taken the main stage with the most usage being centred around the CPU and the GPU really just needs to exist.

HOW FAR DO YOU PUSH IT

Your team has the option to take earlier exits back. Thats not what P.L.U.T.O’s goal is. They want you to take the last exit but other exits aren’t in vain.