Little Orpheus. This kinda big

Little Orpheus is a side scrolling adventure game developed by ‘The Chinese Room‘ and published by ‘Secret Mode‘. Little Orpheus is said to be coming out the 13th of September 2022 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4 and pc. Little Orpheus trying to make something big happen. X35 Earthwalker like games that go big and not home. Let’s take a look.

Little Orpheus has an interesting story going on here. Players control a cosmonaut dude named Ivan Ivanovich. The year is 1962. The location is Soviet Siberia. Ivan is dropped into an extinct volcano in the Little Orpheus… which is his exploration capsule. The mission is to explore the centre of the Earth. He disappears… but three years later he’s back with claims that he saved the world. Also his capsule, the ‘Little Orpheus’ was powered by a nuclear bomb. He returns without that too. So yeah, the people in charge are mad. He has to explain what happened. So he recalls the events. These events is your gameplay. He is telling the story.

So according to Ivan a whole lot of stuff happened on his adventure. Forests, civilisations, water, facilities and more. There’s numerous places in this game which have very different looks and environments. We like the areas in Little Orpheus. It’s a side scrolling game, so like Infernax, Limbo and Greak: memories of azur, what you see is what you get. So be observant and take in everything on the screen. The details should be fantastic. Modern Side scrolling games tend too.

Now a game like this would be beautiful but get boring fast. Little Orpheus doesn’t have an empty world. There’s living creatures and sentient beings here. This includes giant creatures, monsters and other hostile beings. There’s dinosaurs who want a meal, giant bugs who want to get some nutrients (by eating you) and even larger threats. Players will need to use their wits (if they have any), quick thinking and observation skills to survive through this. Shouldn’t be too hard… right?

We checked out some Little Orpheus gameplay and it’s what we though it would be. Matter of fact it heavily reminds us of ‘Planet Alpha‘. Both games had imaginary and big beautiful worlds. Both games have life in them with creatures and cool environments. both main characters are space looking dudes like travellers. Both have dangers and giant creatures which will end you if you aren’t careful. Let’s hope that Little Orpheus isn’t a baby difficulty game and has some challenge with maybe some scares. Games like this need to make sure to be as memorable as possible. 

Overall Little Orpheus has very good potential. We like the different environments and how good they look. We like that something may be following you in the background and we hope that only observant players can spot them before the counter. Not every main threat should have this though. We hope the survival and encounters are realistic. Graphics are good but we expected a bit better. The developers ‘Chinese Room’ have done a very good game so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will see if Little Orpheus ticks off the boxes.