Aphelion Review – Flew Too Close To The Sun

Aphelion is Don’t Nod’s latest ambitious sci-fi narrative adventure. While it does not reach the heights of what the studio has to offer, it is a commendable effort.

Don’t Nod is a studio that has developed itself as a narrative powerhouse for almost 20 years now. From its early beginnings with Remember Me all the way to Aphelion, a pattern begins to emerge that they simply cannot seem to shake off. You have stories with emotional depth, but also gameplay that ends up leaving much to be desired.

For every carefully crafted cutscene, there is a forced mechanic who does not quite work. And then, you have the payoff that makes it all worth it, at the cost of begrudgingly trudging along its middling video game systems. In that sense, Aphelion is squarely Don’t Nod’s holy grail, but one I wish they were able to overcome.

The DNA of Don’t Nod’s three previous releases is front and center, albeit with significant caveats. Jusant, one of 2023’s best games, tackled climate change sensibly without even uttering a single line of dialogue. It included one of the more refined climbing systems long before Cairn did. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage showed that the original Life is Strange studio still has that penchant for emotional storytelling. A forced clumsy stealth section reminded us too that it still has some kinks to iron out.

And then there’s Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. The most similar game that Aphelion took a page from, Banishers features a tragic love story that revolves around a ghost-hunting couple. The writing is to this day what I value the most in Don’t Nod games, and it is poignant, heartbreaking, and hopeful in this gothic adventure. Every side quest shows a moral complexity that will leave players stumped as to what the right choice could be. Once again, its faults lie in its weak combat. Every single time it feels like the studio is impossibly close to greatness, but then it loses its focus.

What do we get then? A worthwhile video game picking up, sure, but one with fine print attached. Aphelion takes Jusant’s climbing, Lost Records’ emotion, and Banishers’ passion to tell one grand sci-fi tale with mixed results. Its collaboration with the European Space Agency helps tell a somewhat grounded story with a tinge of fantasy. Each landscape is so beautifully realized that it inspires us into thinking of the places we could go someday should space exploration be developed enough.

Ariane Montclair and Thomas Cross are two astronauts tasked with traveling to a planet called Persephone to locate The Source. Within its nimble 8- to 10-hour narrative, it does not need to concern itself with overly complicated science terms. That said, Aphelion’s environmentalist is one I can get behind. As the story goes, in the year 2060, humanity will have even worse climate catastrophes than the ones we already have. That part, at least, will not be fiction by any metric, so I commend Don’t Nod for looking at such a deep-rooted issue.

Playing alternatively with both characters trying to find each other after being separated, Ariane is the more acrobatic of the two. Sliding to avoid obstacles after crash-landing, she finds herself climbing rocky mountains more often than not. The graphics are breathtaking in these moments. Her believable knee-jerk reactions contrasting with the hostile winter wonderland paint a bleak picture. Initially, that is.

The problems start to arise when the expertly directed cutscenes lead to actually controlling Ariane. Where the Interestellar-evoking soundtrack inspires its star-crossed lovers to save humanity in one last Hail Mary, the creativity in the gameplay just is not there. While escaping the decaying spaceship, there are some jaw-dropping set pieces, but the climbing itself does not feel as tight as Jusant’s.

Using a winch adds some variety to swinging and jumping across chasms, even though the animations look tense and erratic. Finding voice recordings or lore documents works as a low reward for wrangling with the controls themselves. It is not unplayable; on the contrary, it is quite competent. It has just been overdone in many other instances before it. Squeezing through cracks is all too common as well, to the point where developers worldwide should be thinking about adding a new mechanic to mask loading screens.

In an effort to introduce some friction, Ariane needs to balance herself in tedious gaps in tightrope-style balancing sections. It seems developers knew how unwelcome those brief sequences would be, as they can be outright turned off in an accessibility section in the menu. Thomas, on his part, has to hurry between machines to get his oxygen tank fixed and not get asphyxiated in the process. This, too, can be turned off in the menu. Sadly, certain QTEs cannot be turned off at the time of writing.

Aphelion is really close to greatness. The narrative itself is impeccable and one that taken on its own might as well be one of the best of the year. I stand by that. The writing is passionate to the point it makes you root for its dual protagonists. The fact the game itself is concise aids it greatly, as it never outstays its welcome. But it’s impossible not to wonder how many times Don’t Nod must try to create a masterpiece only to fall short by a few crippling issues. I do not have the answer, but I long for the day they succeed.