As I swing my "friend" – aka, a giant lollipop – into the gut of yet another enemy, I consider for a moment how simultaneously clever and chaotic Into The Unwell truly is. The sweet treat has many associations, commonly seen as a reward doled out by doctors to their most well-behaved patients. Similarly, as I gleefully gather teeth – a pearly white temporary currency – after clearing the level, I'm implicitly reminded of tooth-pulling and other barbaric practices suffered by psychiatric patients over the last hundred years.
This is no accident, because everything here is a symbol for something else. Straddling two stylized worlds of madness and reality, Into The Unwell opts for ugly truths over euphemism. It refuses to take itself too seriously, satirizing age-old stigma to turn perceived weakness into immense strength. It's also a damn fun co-op roguelike, and it took just 45 minutes for me to put it straight on my most wanted list.
Dosing up
Developer: She Was Such a Good Horse
Publisher: Coffee Stain Publishing
Platform(s): PC
Release date: Early Access TBC
The most ludicrous thing about Into the Unwell isn't the fact that you're fighting with candy, or the 2D-3D art style inspired by rubber hose animation of the 1930s (think Steamboat Willie), or the fact that it's doing all those things to expose the clinical mistreatment of mental illness over the years. It's how well all of those things seem to fit with the form and flow of the roguelike genre in the most unexpected of ways.
When I asked studio co-founder Mårten Stockhaus what came first, the genre or the themes, he said it was the former. This definitely surprised me. The game is so intensely thematic down to the absolute minutiae of its visual design, reflecting some very heavy themes with all the subtlety of an ice pick through the eye socket (yet somehow, never in poor taste).
But given that Into The Unwell was conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time where even the most stable among us might have taken a few hits to the sanity department, a game about the loneliness and surreality of the fractured human psyche makes perfect sense.
The game sees you and perhaps one or two others navigating the throes of madness under the guidance of a very twisted therapist. The real world is dark and dreary, void of color, while The Unwell – a realm accessed by leaping down a well in the middle of the hub town where you begin – is anything but. I can power myself up with pills dispensed by pharmacist Lenny, fitting them into my pillbox-shaped loadout before selecting a weapon and taking the plunge.
If I die in The Unwell, I end up back here in the hub town for another round of pills and other perma-upgrades. This unique blend of style and substance is just one way Into the Unwell reminds me of American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns, and the concept truly shines as a roguelike. The message is simple: mental illness is something that must be battled day after day.
Folie a trois
It takes a special kind of game to make dark themes feel so jubilant.
It also doesn't have to be lonely after all. Stockhaus and community manager Andréas Göransson are able to join me in online co-op for a spot of shared delusion once I finish the tutorial, and together, we take our first leap into The Unwell.
I've swapped my heavy lollipop for the fish hooks, a dagger-like weapon best suited to my agile combat preferences compared to the three other "friends" I have at my disposal. Combat is a little more nuanced in this game than in some of the best roguelikes I've played before. Instead of button-mashing mindlessly, I need to keep an eye on the dazed meter above each enemy's head to gauge when they will be open to a more punishing attack. I can even time a perfect dodge to evade attacks and, again, stun my foes.
On top of that, I have a charged up special, a devastating ground-pound triggered when jumping and hammering the attack button immediately after, and the ability to simply boot an enemy into the abyss courtesy of the lack of invisible walls encasing each of Into the Unwell's myriad levels.
These aforementioned enemies are all shades of kooky. I can't even describe what exactly they were, but picture a sentient, evil slice of pizza in a clashing world of colors (or lack thereof) and shapes and unnerving landscapes for a stylized portrayal of madness. I love the gleeful chaos of it all, but it does feel markedly different to the regular chaos I'd ascribe to a roguelike.
Into the Unwell reminds me of American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns, and the concept truly shines as a roguelike.
Third-person action-style roguelikes are a rarity to me, and I was surprised by how much something as simple as perspective changed my experience.
Instead of having an isometric view of a given chamber like in Hades 2, or a 2D platformer perspective like in Hollow Knight, I'm treated to eyeballs full to the brim with stuff. I can't see or predict the locations of each and every enemy, my depth perception is way off, and something about the whole experience feels deliberately disorienting. That's not just because I am hopeless at platforming – waves of enemies come in droves, from every side and angle imaginable, and when the coast is finally clear and we can forge a path forward, I do very much feel like I'm just burrowing further down the rabbit hole. Or in this case, a well.
By embracing the weird and putting painstaking amounts of detail into every item, location, and character, Into the Unwell is shaping up to be one of the most cleverly executed co-op roguelikes out there. It's frantic, sure, but each strike and kick feels fluid and necessary in this hand-drawn world of oddities. It takes a special kind of game to make dark themes feel so jubilant, and with Stockhaus describing it as intended to give "power to the powerless," Into the Unwell looks to make good on that ambition.
Into The Unwell is "coming soon" to Steam in early access. Check out all the other upcoming PC games we're waiting for in 2025 and beyond!
