REVIEW: ‘Venture To The Vile’ Is Whimsical Weirdness That Hits (PC)

Metroidvanias are a dominant genre in the indie game space. Which, of course, means that standing apart from others is essential. With a 2.5D style and a macabre but cute aesthetic, twisting dark fantasy Venture To The Vile does just that. Published by Aniplex and developed by Cut to Bits, Venture To The Vile uses its unique aesthetic to craft a world you can’t forget.

Set in Rainybrook, a picturesque and quaint but strange place where humans wear animal masks, you play a boy-turned-young man who wakes up to the “Vile”—a pestilence that has overtaken the town and led to many missing people. The unknown Vile has morphed the town’s people, fauna, and landscape into something more treacherous. Your goal is to save the town and hopefully find your best friend, Ella.

Only, the Vile isn’t something you’re battling on the outside, but it’s also consuming you. You collect Vile as you combat the enemies in your way, but the more you use it, the more you consume it, making you more of a monster than you were in the beginning. Through a beautifully macabre and artistic leveling system, you use the Vile to gain more abilities that make exploration even more in-depth. Each area is designed to be run through multiple times with new abilities, opening new elements of the level design and creating a craveable sense of traversal that sticks even for just an eight-hour game.

The Vile transforms the landscape with spike traps and interactive elements by breaking its surroundings and creating scalable rubble and electrified puddles. The most interesting thing about the Vile is that you can see how everything existed before. You can understand how the hospital operated before it was overrun; you can see the beautiful landscapes now seemingly irradiated by the orange Vile glow, and that is how you build a world.

Venture To The Vile embraces its 2.5D style to add depth to each level, with small elements like signage and townspeople adding layers to each direction you move. Instead of following a linear path to the left and right, this Metroidvania moves forward and back at designated points.

A mechanic that could have easily become a gimmick, the depth this adds to the gameplay is handled beautifully. Each section is given the same amount of attention to developing its place in the story. The developers’ focus on making Rainybrook and everything that lies outside of it and beneath feel like one cohesive world with a history that goes beyond what we see on the surface is beyond commendable.

The game’s mechanics and traversal are standard for the genre, but its story and artistic vision make it an absolute must-play. The worldbuilding and lore that you uncover throughout the story push dark fantasy to places that you only can in gaming. It’s how that lore interacts with a story that is influenced by your choices that takes it to the next level. Are the townspeople psychopaths or just extremely weird? Should they be cleansed? Should you focus on Ella? And ultimately, how much do you allow the Vile to consume you?

Your fate and the town’s are intimately intertwined. But to fully grasp that, it’s essential to talk to the townspeople, hear their stories, and pull them together to understand the history of Rainybrook and its people.

While dark fantasy and a morbid sense of beauty are paramount in Venture To The Vile, its dark spin is also expertly funny at many points. Understanding how to blend dark human and physical gags while never losing its edge is a tall order. But Venture To The Vile manages that. It’s whimsical, with a specific sense of body horror melded perfectly in its animal bosses.

From a millipede or an octopus to a walrus and a rabbit and even more fearsome beasts, each is the perfectly designed embodiment of accessible horror. While some may compare the aesthetic to worlds created by Tim Burton, Venture To The Vile exploits the uncanny valley, which throws you into a more akin to an all-time, all-ages horror great, Coraline.

But the macabre beauty of the character design isn’t the only element that keeps Venture To The Vile’s eerie feel. The score and dynamic weather and day-to-night cycles also help ensure the atmosphere is captured in each area. Both elements also allow you to see the amount of care that has been put into designing each environment. Some rewards are only available at certain times of day, and the Vile itself reacts to them, making the world grow even deeper.

With a simple heart system that allows you to track your health and an intuitive save system with campfires (an old faithful in the genre), your playthrough is mostly straightforward. But simplicity doesn’t always pay off, at least at the beginning of the game. Without a way to see a boss’s health, managing your health potions or strategizing is hard. The simplicity of the gameplay can be fun to explore and learn, but it can also be frustrating, especially when you struggle against a boss.

But even with that critique, Venture To The Vile is clearly a Metroidvania built with a deep knowledge of its genre. More importantly, it’s an indie game that embodies passion, creativity, and a special kind of whimsical weirdness that will stay with you past rolling credits. Every stage and boss makes you want to revisit them, and every interaction with a townsperson begs you to complete their quirky sidequest. The boss fights to utilize their environments and boss abilities consistently, pushing you to remain engaged. And finally, its expertly crafted story makes Venture To The Vile another must-play indie of the year.

Venture To The Vile is available now on PC via Steam.