If Saviorless is Cuba’s first independent video game, then players are in for an aesthetically pleasing yet moody future of game design that touches on emotional elements that leave a mark on the psyche. Saviorless isn’t the best example of a platformer, but it’s a great start to something truly novel in the platforming space.
Saviorless feels very familiar to Limbo and Inside, but far more wordy. The three hours of gameplay took me through hand-drawn environments, platforming across a collapsing world, and solving puzzles all the while dangerous foes lurked in every corner. It started benign, almost hopeful, but treaded into a darker territory. It’s a beautiful game with small details that reacted to my input.
Saviorless is the first independent Cuban video game – at least that’s how it was described in its 2016 Indiegogo campaign. At that time, Saviorless was aiming to be a 2D platformer involving novel gameplay and hand-drawn animation. In its original campaign video, there were glimpses of exploration and combat from the perspective of a little god who has awaken from a strange dream to see his world crumbling to pieces. The game has evolved and substantially shifted its direction over the past six years of development. Now, Saviorless incorporates platforming, mild puzzles, and some combat – but that combat is liminal and only becomes part of the core gameplay in the game’s final chapters.
Not that I was expecting a combat-focused platformer – there are quite a few of those on the market as it is. My main concern is that attempting to incorporate too many competing elements without deep support takes away the novelty that Saviorless attempts to instill. To that end, Savorless walks down the middle of the road of platforming, puzzles, and combat. It doesn’t miss the mark, but it also doesn’t excel in either of these areas.
My gut reaction to Saviorless was that it was a love letter to the wordless indie puzzle platformers of the early ‘10s. Games like Limbo, Inside, and 2020’s FAR: Lone Sails come to mind alongside Stray. These games involve varying degrees of narration alongside environmental storytelling that emerges in-between puzzles and short stints of platforming/exploration. The more the player explores, the more they understand the protagonist’s place in the world as well as the competing forces that tear it asunder. Saviorless adopts a direct and wordier narrative approach, utilizing the fourth wall to highlight the journey of a protagonist’s pilgrimage while being controlled by seemingly unseen forces.
The notion of this pilgrimage is interesting, especially given how it subtly critiques the concept of sainthood and blind faith. Games that critique religious phenomena are memorable in my book, with the Blasphemous series taking the cake of how it illustrates the darker sides of Christianity. Despite its wordiness, Saviorless misses the mark in highlighting the narrative tensions that drive the protagonist forward. I knew early on that the “story” (as in, the existence of the protagonist told through the words of the narrators) was told by unseen forces, but I lacked a clear explanation as to those unseen forces’ true purpose. The narrators seemed to know more about the second protagonist (I’m being intentionally vague here as to not spoil the story beats) than I did, withholding this character’s motives from me in such a fashion that I was left to feel like I was missing critical information about Saviorless’ world. By the final chapter, the rug was pulled from under my feet from the emergence of a new antagonist who had been present all along yet wasn’t fully realized.
Things didn’t add up and I was left confused about the game’s ending; that was most disappointing about Saviorless. Part of what makes games like Limbo so memorable is that they wrap up loose ends and leave a profound emotional impact on the player. Over several hours of gameplay, motives, causes, and effects are drip-fed to the player in a way that culminates in something for the player to take away from the console or the computer. It could be something emotional (like Stray’s ending) or shocking (like Inside’s final chapter). Confusion was what I took away when I finished Saviorless and set down my controller.
I’ve been avoiding talking too much about the story and gameplay as to not spoil Saviorless’ best bits. From what I’ve said so far, I can understand that I’m coming off as overly critical or disappointed. Truth be told that I am disappointed, but there’s enough depth to warrant a recommendation for players wanting a light adventure in a beautifully handcrafted world.
Much of Saviorless’ gameplay revolves around a single human protagonist, Antar, who is frail and on his path to a land of saviors. Enemies who threaten Antar dispose of him in a single hit, meaning that avoiding enemies is the primary way of progressing. Things get complicated further in his journey as he comes across machinery and tools that can dispose of enemies, but there’s still a level of caution that I was to take in order to proceed. The game’s puzzles are short yet sweet, often relying on thinking through the correct placement of objects or leading enemies into traps. The occasional timed puzzle involved me jumping across unstable platforms or windy expanses. None of it proved to be exceedingly difficult, but dying to enemies and having to restart my progress was mildly frustrating.
Saviorless doesn’t overstay its welcome, nor does it drag on. From start to finish, Antar’s journey is rife with danger and just enough complexity to feel as though none of my time was wasted nor filled with frivolity that served to inflate my playtime. It’s short yet sweet – perfect for an afternoon.
While Saviorless is as straightforward as they come, I was pleased to see that there were small collectibles to obtain that would impact the game’s ending. At the end of each chapter, I could decide if I wanted to restart in the instance where I missed something. Having that option was great, especially since the collapsing world prevented me from going backward. Instead, my “story” started over and I could attempt to find the missing pieces of my story that I was unable to find on the first go around.
Before concluding, I wanted to touch on Saviorless’ aesthetic and overall designs. I loved the handdrawn animations and moodiness of the game’s environments. Pale enemies would explode in a burst of blood, their corpses collapsing in a bundle of limbs. The environments in particular struck me because of how similar they looked to homemade paper – you know the types you could purchase at the craft stores? While cartoony at times, the designs shift from earthy to macabre to match the protagonist’s ascent, err – descent, into saviorhood.
If Saviorless is Cuba’s first independent video game, then players are in for an aesthetically pleasing yet moody future of game design that touches on emotional elements that leave a mark on the psyche. Saviorless isn’t the best example of a platformer, but it’s a great start to something truly novel in the platforming space.
