Image via Rubeki Games
At this point, we’ve seen plenty of games that take something normal, almost boring, and make it not just engaging, but thrilling. The dullest of actions can be made exhilarating with the right changes, and The Hollowing does exactly that with the normalities of flying I’ve never given a second thought to.
I recently played the 40-minute-or-so demo for The Hollowing, and while I went in skeptical that this was another Iron Lung rip-off, I was pleasantly spooked to find something more alluring. Don’t get me wrong, it spooked the heck out of me, but I also can’t wait to play the final release.
The Hollowing Is A Must-Play Demo For Explorers Of Mysterious Worlds
You might remember Lorn’s Lure, a first-person narrative adventure in which you play an android guided by a glitch in its system. The game allows you to climb anything in the megastructure you find yourself in, and makes for a memorable experience. Well, The Hollowing is set in the same world.
The setting is a colossal megastructure, in which resides a pocket of humanity split across settlements that are so far apart that they require giant radio towers just to stay in touch. However, as with all technology, especially as it ages, there are problems with bits and pieces breaking down and general maintenance. That’s where you come in.
You pick up the game fresh out of engineering school, though it’s a bit different than you might expect. Engineers in this world must fly between radio towers and maintain any of the decrepit technology required to maintain communications. Right here, just in this simple idea, you can see something as boring as changing light bulbs and fuses given a new lease of life. You can’t just walk over and change the fuse; you’ve got to fuel up your plane, follow the lights as you traverse miles of thick fog, and land safely in order to change that fuse.
It might be the dad in me talking, but this level of intensity is how all DIY feels to me, so The Hollowing is another level of exciting. Add in the fact that you’ve got to wear the right safety equipment or the spores from the megastructure’s air will give you hallucinations for a week, and you’ve got plenty of danger in the mix too. In the short span of the demo, developer Rubeki Games gave me enough knowledge of the world and hints about my role in it that I was sold for the long haul.
The story will play out between you and whoever you get to speak to on the radio. Most of the time, you’re figuring out answers to strange problems with the radio towers, but the demo ends with a mysterious signal that blows your ears and knocks you off course. Terrifying and engrossing all at once, I can’t recommend giving the demo a go enough.
Look, I hear you, this sounds like just another Iron Lung. It reeks of cosmic horror and plays with scales you can’t even imagine. For example, this megastructure is big enough that you’ve got to fly between locations. I mean, that’s massive! Where I live, you fly because you need to cover distance faster than any other mode of transport allows, and you must have nothing in your way. We’re dealing with size on a level that makes no sense to us as a society, at least in the UK, and that’s just one part of the world that’s bonkers.
This all goes without saying why the air is full of spores. Are they there because of us? Is it fog from machines that helped them get deadly? It’s all so tantalizingly out of reach and unknowable, but without leaning hard into cosmic horror.
I don’t know for sure if you’ll be maintaining your plane throughout the game, but I’d guess that you will be. After all, there’s a fully fleshed-out flight simulation mechanic in The Hollowing. You have a tablet to interact with all machines, and it’s the hub of your flight controls. You’ve got to keep checking your altitude, your level to the ground, your speed, and make sure you’re not going to crash into anything while flying through thick fog, all while checking various data points on your tablet. It’s stressful, but in the best kind of way, like you’re driving a tractor while trying to not squash hundreds of tiny ducklings.
For me, it’s the fact that you’re an active participant in everything that makes The Hollowing so gripping. The plane will crash if you’re not paying attention, and you can’t fix machines up without actually diagnosing the problem through investigations. There’s no sitting back here; you’ve got to be all-in, dirty pixel-graphics and everything.
The game’s release is currently set for 2026, though I don’t know if it’ll definitely make that window. It’s certainly one to add to your wishlist, but please do play the demo first because it’ll give you a taste of exactly why this has to be high up on your list of indies to pick up as soon as they’re available.
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