If you engaged at all with the indie-game sphere in 2022, chances are this introduction rings a bell.

Your lost kitten reads BlueTwelves city like a veteran backpacker.

Such are the vagaries of existence in a living, breathing, immensely complex ecosystem.

A snowy scene in Rain World Downpour, in what looks like an area of a disused industrial factory. The player character, a pale green slug cat, climbs a pole towards a menacing bird-like creature with fringe-like wings. The scene is framed by a tall, thin, blue palm tree on either side

Two things mitigate Downpour’s overwhelming opacity.

Crucially, Downpour achieves all that without sacrificing its core principles of opacity and all-pervading hostility.

This is a world that remains as intimidating and enigmatic as ever.

Cover image for YouTube video

A pale blue slug cat creature (the player character in Rain World Downpour) hides on the right side of a rainy, grey, post-apocalyptic landscape, as a strange winged creature with a skull-like face divebombs the left side

A pale blue slugcat swims in a grey pool, under several colony bird nests built on sticks poking out of the grey water, connected by chains

A purple slugcat in Risk Of Rain: Downpour traverses an underground, dark factory room, partially lit by red hazard lighting