Games don't always have to have a profound message. The early titles of the medium had the most paper-thin narratives and premises, and there's no reason that the games of today and the future can't be made with tales that can be summarized in a single sentence. When a game tries to tell a deep tale or convey a special message to the player, it has to commit for the message to resonate. After Us tries to do that but doesn't quite hit the mark.

The story opens at night in a wooded field, where several animals are roaming about. The only thing to indicate that something is off is the fact that some of the ocean life is swimming in the sky, and all of the animals sport a bluish hue. The game focuses on Gaia, a girl who has woken up from a nap to find herself surrounded by nature. Things quickly go awry. A fawn she is petting disappears in a puff of smoke, and the other animals do the same. After a cry of despair, the spirit of the Earth speaks to her and tells her that the Ark housing all of the animal spirits has been destroyed. The animals have been destroyed by invaders known as the Devourers. While the Ark may be gone, their spirits are still roaming the planet. With the promise to bring them back to life, Gaia accepts the power of the Earth spirit and goes on a journey to rescue the animal spirits.

The spirit of the Earth is the only speaker in the entire game — and even then, all of the words are written down on the screen instead of spoken. The rest of the tale is wordless, while Gaia's only emotions seem to be slight bouts of joy, more sadness, and anger. Tales that use action more than words to convey the story can still communicate something gripping, but that isn't the case. You get the idea that humans were ultimately responsible for the condition of the planet, but the narrative doesn't go beyond that, so the story isn't that interesting even when you can tell what the big twist is going to be after saving the first major spirit.

For the most part, your primary gameplay activity is 3D platforming. Normal jumps and double-jumps get more height on leaps than a running jump, but the latter is better for covering distance. Double-jumping grants the chance to float for a bit before falling to the ground, but you can add a dash at the last minute to cover more ground. Aside from the jump and the dash, you can run up certain walls to add some verticality to the proceedings.

Aside from moving around, you can use the power of Earth's heart in a few ways. Using it as an energy blast from your body dispels some puddles of burning goo while also papering the area with vegetation for a short amount of time. You can also use this to cause trees to grow, but that seems to be more for aesthetic purposes; using them as platforms isn't as easy as expected. You can use a ball of energy to activate switches, and both the blast and ball are used to release the trapped animal spirits into the world — complete with the ability to pet them.

The platforming can be enjoyable because of to the environments you visit. Some of the things you'll see are standard fare for an apocalyptic setting, such as highways of abandoned cars. The floating cars make it a touch more surreal. Flying cars, old CRT TVs that warp you from one place to another, and large bird cages create even more environments that are awesome and a little terrifying. It sometimes feels like it was inspired by Little Nightmares, since you can feel diminutive in a few areas, courtesy of large humanoid statues.

At the same time, the platforming isn't perfect, and nothing exemplifies this better than an early bug where the tutorial gave the wrong instructions for crossing a chasm. Fail that, and suddenly the powers you gained are stripped away, forcing you into a situation where you can't finish this portion until you restart the game and try again. This wasn't present in the preview build, but it was fixed in a later patch, and it exemplifies some issues with the general platforming that appears later on.

While you have a circle underneath you that gauges where you'd land, the non-floating jumps still lack weight, and the circle sometimes appears too late to be useful. It becomes difficult to gauge your distance when leaping due to a camera that sometimes is pulled back too far. Be prepared to enter cycles of falling to your doom and respawning before you finally get it right. The lack of control when air-dashing also doesn't help in this situation. The game sometimes lets you spawn past your failure point without much reason to it. The leaping issues are inconsistent, so you never get a comfortable bead on your leaping abilities, which is vital when platforming is going to be the primary activity.

It also doesn't help when the sentient piles of goo seem to derail perfectly good leaps or regular walks because you get a good distance away from them. This is also inconsistent, as one leap might get you caught by their long tentacles while another with the same arc and distance lets you pass by unharmed. It happens often enough that it becomes a chore to pass through seemingly easy sections just because the goo feels like taking you at that moment.

While platforming makes up most of the action, there are moments when you fight using the same tools that you already possess. The same energy blast to clear out some of the goo in a stage can also be used to kill some of the smaller flying enemies. The energy ball used to free smaller spirits and activate switches can also be used to hit enemies from far away. Given the energy ball's boomerang-like nature, you can use it to attack during the initial throw or when you call for it to return. There's not much to combat beyond that. You don't get to power up any of those abilities, and you don't gain any new ones. You also don't get to fight against various enemy types or bosses, which makes fighting more of a side activity than a major function, like the platforming.

While combat adds something new to the platforming, it isn't exactly a welcome addition to After Us. Some enemies die in one shot and prove to be annoyances when you're trying to accomplish difficult jumps. Other enemies tend to take several hits to take down, and those are the ones that come in bunches and seem impervious to your energy blast. That same blast is good for getting away, but since the hit-and-run tactic seems to be the only viable way to deal with these threats, fighting just isn't fun.

The presentation is rather well done. Gaia animates fine, and the hair is a big highlight, considering how many strands there seem to be. The environments look great despite their ruined nature. It really shines when grass and flowers appear or when you unleash internal power burst to clear off oil. The only flaw is that you'll have to deal with a shader cache preload that takes quite a while to complete, but it ensured that the hitching from the preview build is no longer present.

The performance of the release build of the game doesn't differ much from the preview build we saw a while ago. The frame rate still fluctuates wildly between 30-60fps, so you'll definitely want to get a frame rate lock for stability. The battery life hits around 95 minutes on a full charge, which seems quite paltry considering that the graphics look good but aren't groundbreaking. There's also a good amount of noise in the general picture, so while having another game playable on the Steam Deck is always welcome, it could've done better.

There's a fascinating game hiding in After Us. The melancholy tale of resurrecting a desolate Earth makes for an interesting premise, but it isn't told in a way to make you care much about it. The platforming generates some good moments, but it is also clunky in places due to the physics and lack of explanation in the tutorial. The combat is rather unnecessary and unexciting, but it is functional, while the presentation remains fetching. Patches are still being created to tweak the game, and there is some potential to fix the technical issues experienced in the early portion of this playthrough. For now, it isn't a game that you need to seek out and play if there are other options to tackle.

Score: 6.5/10