It’s interesting to think that in its original release, Limbo found itself most commonly compared to Jonathan Blow’s Braid. It’s an old enough game now that, as far as we’re concerned, it’s okay to do that. In other words, this review will have spoilers. It’s time to give a game which predates the WiiU with the treatment of a retro-review, and to ask the dreaded question of whether it holds up to scrutiny. So I’m relieved that Playdead has released Limbo on the Switch, as finally it’s an opportunity to look at the game in hindsight.

While I’d be reluctant to spoil an early twist two hours into a 15 hour game if it recontextualised player expectations, by that logic we’d be limiting coverage of Limbo to the game’s first 30 minutes. At just five hours long and with a design focused on player experience, suddenly everything became a spoiler and reviews could only describe Limbo with distanced judgements about how words couldn’t properly do it justice – and it’s hard to blame writers for this either.

Playdead’s first foray into commercial games development came as a dream and a prayer, and its earnestness and sheer novelty on the Xbox Live Arcade back in 2010 made it a hard game to write about. I should preface this by saying this is not going to be an average review of Limbo.

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