I’ve perched on top of spindly platforms, rusty pieces of rebar, and huge stone slabs alike as I picked my way further down. I’m chasing an iridescent, glitchy creature that might lead me to a remaining source of power—or trap me underneath the same debris I stand on. My android body has endured for over 250 years, but that spark is dwindling fast. And the only solution is to climb deeper inside. Lorn’s Lure stays true to its name: it lures you in even when the situation around you gets increasingly more dangerous.
Related: Jusant Review: At the Top of the Dontnod Mountain
Lorn’s Lure is a deliberately low-fidelity exploration game that feels like Jusant’s charismatic evil twin. Any glimmer of life (at least in the first handful of chapters) is long gone or fleeting. You’re constantly swallowed up in industrial decay, picking your way from one weathered slab to another.
Although the game’s world is difficult to travel through, the game’s controls are simple and sharp, making your journey a little less stressful; left stick moves, right stick looks, A button jumps. And once you loot tools from an unlucky explorer, left trigger jams your climbing picks into the wall. Where possible, anyway. If you attempt to hang onto porous or metal surfaces, your picks will bounce right off. An orange stamina meter dwindles onscreen as you climb, and once it depletes, you drop. Press the select button and you’ll quickly respawn at the nearest landmark. Harsh but fair.
Free Climb
Guidance in Lorn’s Lure is mischievously vague. Press the directional pad for a pink waypoint off in the distance, but getting there is entirely your problem. There are no waving flags, no yellow paint, or white lines guiding you from point A to point B. And after your initial disorientation wears off, it feels freeing, playful even.
Can you climb all the way up that haphazard vent network? Sure! And in the more elusive spots, an optional light blue crystal bobs up and down for the completionist sickos.
“How do I get there?” you’ll ask. “There’s no way I can make that.” Oh, but you can. Maybe not from this angle or elevation. But if you can see the crystal or the waypoint, you can reach it. Lorn’s Lure uses that trust to gently push you in the right direction, even if you fall afterwards.
Electric Feel
Lorn’s Lure eases you in with short hops and climbs, but soon the game tests the limits of what your android body can do. Long drops feel absolutely jaw-rattling. (If you’re especially prone to motion sickness, maybe turn screenshake off in the game settings.) These maneuvers are necessary, not cautionary. Get further into the pit, and you’ll be making leaps of faith around corners and teetering off the edge of a jagged rock face.
32-bit textures and sound only heighten the ambience. If you spent hours in the Tomb Raider II demo on the PlayStation, the sound of a steep slope will strike fear into your heart. Textures have just enough detail to translate, all in service of Lorn’s Lure’s scale. Hyperrealism stops mattering when you can’t see a pillar’s edges. You just grit your teeth and keep scraping your climbing picks.
Thoughts So Far: Lorn’s Lure Beckons Me Further Into the Abyss
I have a confession to make: I’ve only cleared a handful of Lorn’s Lure levels because I can’t stop climbing on everything. The tools feel so tactile, the restarts so immediate that of course I can’t help but explore every surface. Once the game’s first level widened, I felt sheepish. But by the third time the game increased in scale, I knew I had the right idea. Even a decaying world can be your playground. I haven’t collected a single optional crystal or cleared every level, but I’m still gripped by the urge to investigate every slope. I climb down into the dark.
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