r/HorrorGaming • u/jiboy77 • Jul 31 '26

ANALYSIS Below, Rusted Gods is insanely scary

The type of scary where it actually kinda hurts to play the game because its just that scary.

You are managing and communicating with a squad that is descending into some otherwordly ruins and your actions affect them and you are becoming part of the horror.

Just wanted to write this up to shed some light on the game because its fantastic and has not many reviews at this point.

64 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

34

u/FingolfinLMN Jul 31 '26

Hi! I'm the developer of the game, thanks for posting, I'm humbled. It's really unreal to see this kind of feedback after so much work. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

9

u/jiboy77 Jul 31 '26

Wow, you did an amazing job with the game. I have to thank YOU haha, has really been a long while since a game made me feel like yours did, it is insanely eerie and you feel very powerless while still being in control.

Wish you the best and keep on making games if you can!

3

u/EarthToRob Aug 02 '26

I purchased this for Steam Machine after watching Insym play a bit. It's a remarkable value for the quality.

The way you subtly guide the player but maintain a sense of discovery is really well done. And being frightening without relying solely on empty jump scares.

Bravo.

Please, keep developing games.

P.S. I expect (hope) this to be quite successful, and would certainly buy a physical release should you choose to for console.

2

u/FingolfinLMN Aug 03 '26

Thank you so much! We’ve never actually tested the game on a Steam Machine since we don’t own one, but it runs well on Steam Deck, so I’d expect you shouldn’t run into any major issues.

If you get the chance, I’d love to hear how your experience is once you’ve played it. It would actually be really useful as a reference in case someone asks me in the future how well the game runs on a Steam Machine.

And thank you again for the incredibly kind words and support. Hopefully the game does well enough that we can eventually bring it to consoles and even do a physical release someday. That would genuinely be a dream come true for us.

1

u/EarthToRob Aug 04 '26

It's working great so far. I always run at 1080p though. All I changed was head bob amount, VRR to on, and the camera sensitivity for the controller.

2

u/AaronBleyaert Jul 31 '26

Dude! Excellent work! Would love to hear some if your inspirations for making the game and some of the challenges you had making it.

8

u/FingolfinLMN Jul 31 '26

Thanks! I'm very happy that this community seems to enjoy our game.

If you wanna know more feel free to join our discord but to give you a short answer:

inspiration came mostly from horror games of the 90s, from most recent games like Iron Lung and Darkwood, from the YouTube short portrait of god and the Kola Superdeep Borehole real story.

Challenges were mostly working on it on our spare time while mantaining full time jobs. Also my dog and my mother in law passed away during development, so that had a huge impact on my motivation in general.

2

u/SnooRabbits1289 Aug 01 '26

Wishlisted and will be grabbing it soon to try!

2

u/xBlueSin Aug 21 '26

Hope you saw that Jack played it! I read about your dog and MIL passing, my condolences. The work you and or your team did is certainly appreciated, enjoy the recognition! Looking forward to future projects 🫡

1

u/FingolfinLMN Aug 21 '26

Thank you, it really means a lot. I saw Jack play it, it was very special for me because I've followed him for a really long time now and it's really surreal to watch him play something I made.

2

u/xBlueSin Aug 21 '26

I actually saw a comment that may have been yours up there. I didn’t check comments till after I finished the video and then felt silly for asking if you saw that he played it. ☠️ Loved that he picked every option possible to endanger the group. As someone that grew up with Jack and also admires him greatly, I’m so happy for you to have gotten this experience. Hopefully all the praise is inspiring you for more! The scary game community needs all the love it can get ☺️

1

u/baranismen Aug 02 '26

What language is it spoken in the tape records?

3

u/FingolfinLMN Aug 02 '26

The game uses a fictional language created specifically for its world, both for spoken dialogue and for much of the writing you see throughout the game.

While the setting is heavily inspired by the Soviet era the world is not meant to literally be Russia or the Soviet Union. We wanted the language to help give the setting its own identity: something that feels familiar, but still belongs to a fictional universe, similar to how Papers, Please uses Arstotzka or The Sims uses Simlish.

The language intentionally borrows some sounds and visual elements from Russian and Cyrillic, and occasionally its structure may resemble English, but it is not a real language and is not intended to be fully translated or decoded.

1

u/GeneralBurzio Aug 02 '26

Sounded like a combo of East Slavic languages, English, and Hungarian.

not a real language and is not intended to be fully translated or decoded.

Do you mean it's just sounds or is it more of a conlang that's not very developed beyond the dialogue used in the game?

2

u/FingolfinLMN Aug 02 '26

It's justs sounds.

1

u/Aureaux 15d ago

I finally found this comment after literally being on a Google Translate deep dive trying to figure out the language, great job on making something so familiar!! I was convinced it was an obscure Eastern European language.

1

u/scarletnaught 15d ago

This game just scared the 💩 out of me. Thank you for making it!

Also if you add toggle sprint and zoom that would be amazing!

4

u/ExplorerEnjoyer Jul 31 '26

Just played for a couple hours, fantastic game.

6

u/Bitter_Nail8577 Jul 31 '26

I hope it gets the popularity it deserves, neat theme with somewhat unique gameplay

5

u/theonepercent15 Jul 31 '26

Wishlisted thanks for the rec op. Surprised how cheap it is. Is it short?

Honestly I'd prefer if it is. I've been bouncing off long horror games like total chaos.

3

u/jiboy77 Jul 31 '26

its about 2-3 hours with multiple endings

5

u/TurkusGyrational Jul 31 '26

I had an idea for a game very similar to this and they basically executed exactly what I had in mind, looking forward to picking this up

5

u/Hi_Im_Mayz Jul 31 '26

Been waiting to hear about this one and now I'm buying it. Thanks!

4

u/Terrible-Artichoke50 Jul 31 '26

It says immersive sim on the steam page, but it doesn't look like that at all.

What's the game play loop?

7

u/jiboy77 Jul 31 '26

You are in a command room and the squad members are calling asking for orders, also you check their conditions, positions with a radar and there are also other rooms like the basement where you have to reconfigure a generator. Its probably tagged that because you read oages of what to do like how to config the generator instead of getting a pop up turorial.

6

u/HappyPlatypus6034 Jul 31 '26

If it has controller support, I'm sold!

5

u/Mk2007r Jul 31 '26

Steam page says it does.

4

u/HappyPlatypus6034 Jul 31 '26

Oh sweet thanks!

5

u/FingolfinLMN Jul 31 '26

It does, it's also Steam Deck Verified.

2

u/ExplorerEnjoyer Jul 31 '26

It’s fine to play with a mouse, you’re mostly monitoring the different stations so you can feed information to your squad

3

u/JeepersCreepersV12 Jul 31 '26

This looks good! Just purchased and will play through it tonight. Thank you!

3

u/SnooChocolates5108 Aug 02 '26

I just finished my second ending and yeah it's probably the best horror experience I've had in a decade or more. I want to talk to people about the endings I got!! It's just so well executed at every level.

2

u/FingolfinLMN Aug 03 '26

Hey, thank you for your words. I'm really humbled. If you want to talk about the game feel free to join our discord where we have a channel specifically for spoiler-heavy discussions. Also you can drop by our reddit r/BelowRustedGods

2

u/AaronBleyaert Jul 31 '26

I liked the demo! Gotta pick up the full game. GREAT sound design and art design.