THE PAST WITHIN
Bring a friend for Rusty Lake’s collaborative escape room puzzler
Developer/ publisher Rusty Lake
Format Android, iOS, PC, Switch
Origin Netherlands
Release Q2 2022
The Rusty Lake series has always had something of the uncanny about it. These may be singleplayer games, but their eerie ambience provokes a sensation of being watched: when you play them, you feel you’re never entirely alone. This time, that extra presence is very much corporeal: The Past Within is a puzzler made for two, the first of the series designed solely for cooperative play.
In one sense, it’s not actually all that new: transmedia project Cube Escape: Paradox was part game, part live-action short film, two worlds colliding in one game. This feels like a natural extension of that idea, as one player investigates a large cube with various buttons, switches, symbols and dials to prod at on each face. Meanwhile, the other player explores a more traditional Rusty Lake hand-drawn 2D world, one held within the cube itself. With the cube positioned within a world of its own, too, you wonder how deep the rabbithole goes.