In Rays of the Light [Xbox]

Sergey Noskov’s In Rays of the Light is a remake of his 2012 title, The Light. Described as a “first-person meditative quest”, In Rays of the Light has you explore a large abandoned building in a post-apocalyptic world where you are the last remaining human. You’ll need to look for clues to solve puzzles to progress, and all in the game will take you somewhere between 1-2 hours to complete, although can be done fairly quickly on subsequent playthroughs if you’ve missed any achievements.

You play as a nameless character, exploring this empty, overgrown world. It is labelled as an action-adventure title, but upon first booting up the game, I genuinely believed I was led into a horror game due to how creepy and desolate the world is, combined with the atmospheric sounds and unsettling noises you hear as you explore. There’s not a lot of direction as to what you have to do so you need to explore the building, checking all of the rooms for items and clues as to how to progress.

Visually, it looks decent - with a heavy emphasis on light and shadows, leading to the two available endings you’ll be able to reach. The world is very much abandoned, with things getting progressively creepier and disturbing as you get further and further into the game, although there is never any real threat to contend with. Composed by Dmitriy Nikolaev, it has a very somber feel to the soundtrack, with a beautifully melancholic tune that plays throughout the majority of your exploration.

Some of the puzzles feel unbelievably difficult to figure out, including a looping corridor that requires you to walk round it four times before it leads to a new area appearing, however with nothing obvious to tell us to do this - a fair bit of time was wasted just aimlessly looking for some sort of clue. The use of shadow and light is effective, particularly with some creepy silhouettes on surfaces, and shadowy figures seen later in the game, it does give you a feeling of dread that could possibly have benefited from some kind of enemy or stronger threat being implemented.

We did encounter a few issues here and there, from texture popping and some jagged edges on flooring that felt like it was acting as an invisible wall to prevent you from going in certain directions - only to then realise we needed to jump to bypass these slightly raised platforms (and by raised… I mean, like not even a step. Literally just slightly uneven floor tiles!) - as well as an issue during the end credits on our ‘light’ run, where a large portion of the screen remained black and glitched out, and whilst these were frustrating, they were thankfully relatively minor.

Priced at £6.69 on Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S, it’s a bit more expensive than its £3.99 pricing on Steam (currently 60% off at just £1.59) so if you’re looking to check this out, Steam might be a more alluring option. There’s not a whole lot to it, but if you enjoy walking simulator styled games, particularly if they’re on the slightly creepy side, then this might be worth a shot - especially if you can get it on sale.

In the end, we decided to give In Rays of the Light the Collecting Asylum rating of 7/10.

Have you played In Rays of the Light yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to Sometimes You for the In Rays of the Light Xbox review code!