I played 30 minutes of the new game from the original Little Nightmares devs, and it turns out a twin-stick survival horror Metroidvania is a recipe for spooky heaven

You could probably guess that the former Little Nightmares devs now at Section 9 Interactive would make a deeply atmospheric game with impeccably spooky vibes, but the precise shape of End of Abyss might come as a bit more of a surprise. This is a twin-stick, Soulslike, survival horror Metroidvania, and based on a hands-on gameplay demo at Summer Game Fest, it's a damned compelling combination of those venerable genres.

The Little Nightmares pedigree is hard at work in End of Abyss's visual style, but this is a much more robust 'video game-y' experience. Playing from a top-down perspective, you've got a laser-sighted gun you can easily aim with the right stick – just pull the right trigger to fire. It all feels very good – all my hours in Geometry Wars back in the day certainly paid off – and it gives you enough control to keep the game from ever getting too terrifying.

But there's a base of survival horror here. Your stronger weapons, including a shotgun that can absolutely blow away the basic, zombie-like foes, consume ammo which you've got to replenish by collecting and spending a crafting currency. Enemies respawn every time you hit a save point, Souls style, so you're never truly safe.

Nightmares of all sizes

The creatures are plenty creepy, with zombie-like movements and big, head-exploding transformations straight out of Resident Evil 4. There's a great variety to the creatures, with standard humanoid enemies there to drain your bullets, and smaller annoyances that can latch onto your body and drain your health until you knock them off with a dodge roll. Worst of all are the weird, hand-shaped enemies that move in unpredictable ways and can quickly pin you to the ground.

It's easy enough to manage these encounters if you're well-stocked with ammo, understand the shape of the room you're in, and don't just rush forward into ever-increasing hordes of monsters. But if you ignore those tactics, things can get real bad in a hurry. This push and pull gives the game a nice tension, where incautious exploration will swiftly get you murdered, but keeping a wary eye on each new corner will reward you with manageable combat encounters.

The feel of End of Abyss really came together for me thanks to the scanning system. Think Metroid Prime – you can activate a scanner that'll quickly highlight items of interest nearby. That might give you a hint on how to defeat a particular enemy, or highlight a hidden cache with bonus resources. Perhaps most importantly, it'll note doors or objects you need specific items to bypass, marking them permanently on your map.

Search (and scan) action

This is a full-on Metroidvania, with items to find that'll let you break into new sections of the map, and while taking an active hand in marking a map is nothing new for the genre, this particular system is nicely engaging without becoming onerous. You have to take an active role in making sure your map is up today, but it's just automated enough to keep that process from being tedious. The game's flow is also kept moving by the fact that unlocked secrets and shortcuts stay in place even after you die and respawn.

The demo culminated in a boss fight against a hulking creature whose big wind-up attacks with deceiving rhythms reminiscent of a Souls boss, especially once I started dodge-rolling out of the way of those strikes before responding with shotgun blasts of my own. I died on my first attempt, and all my shotgun shells were still spent when I revived – the other side of the coin when it comes to the world's permanence – but while in the full game you'd have to go gather more crafting materials for ammunition on your own, here the dev helpfully dropped me a bunch of ammo for the next attempt.

It wasn't too much longer before the boss went down, and the fight felt downright breezy by the time I'd actually learned the attack patterns. For my money, that's the mark of quality enemy design, and the threat of spending all your ammo against major enemies will give the fights a nice sense of stakes even when they might be straightforward.

I only played a tiny slice of End of Abyss, and the game's ultimate quality is going to come down to how well the level design carries over the course of the game's entire length. But the foundations here have me eager to see where it goes. This is such a mishmash of genres, but as they come together none of it feels derivative. I'm a little cautious about how tedious the post-death ammo grind might become, and whether the environments will have enough variety to stay engaging for the long haul, but I feel like I've gotten a taste of something that could be very special.

The ranks of the best Metroidvania games and best horror games are well-stocked, but there's always room for more.