A SURVIVAL GAME THAT CONSTANTLY PUSHES FORWARD THE PLAYER AND THE GENRE.

The Eternal Cylinder starts with an alien called a Trebhum hatching from an egg as a giant entity called The Cylinder is right about to crush it. Right as death seems imminent The Cylinder is stopped by a large structure. Looks like the newborn Trebhum is safe… for now.

That’s how to establish a plot and a goal instantly in a video game. I’m going to say that I love The Eternal Cylinder. It is so perfectly alien that I questioned very little of what ACE Team was doing throughout. To say survival games have worn out their welcome is a bit of an understatement; they usually involve some sort of humanoid trapped in a harsh environment fighting both the local climate and fauna to survive with the goal being that most basic tasks are automated later on. There are definitely variations, but none of the ones I have played or seen really reach the heights of The Eternal Cylinder.

PLATFORMS: PS4, XB1, PC
MSRP: $29.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $29.99

The titular Cylinder is a giant, potentially sentient, cylinder that reaches farther than the eye can see and when it rolls it destroys everything in its path. Like a steamroller from hell, The Cylinder crushes everything underneath its weight and there’s no way to avoid the inevitability of this fact. However, as players will quickly notice, there is a way to halt the Cylinder’s advancement using towers that show the player the next goal on the horizon.

However, the game starts the player in a hole of which the Trebhum cannot escape. This is where the big gameplay twist comes into play; Trebhum’s can change shape based on what they eat. The first change is triggered when the player sucks up something dropped by a grasshopper looking creature that gives the Trebhum some legs that increase its jumping ability. I don’t want to spoil too many abilities, but this aspect made me want to experiment by collecting everything possible to see if it gave me new abilities. It sort of goes without saying that an item that changes the Trebhum’s body shape will cancel out any previous changes to body shape, but legs can be matched with body and snout and slowly the Trebhum looks unrelated to what it once was. The workaround to not being able to just collect every ability is that the player can have multiple Trebhum in the party that all have different abilities to help in survival and puzzle solving.

That’s right, puzzle solving. The Eternal Cylinder is primarily a survival game, but in some areas the only way to progress is to solve puzzles which require certain abilities. Now luckily the game never traps the player due to not having the right powers, but the answers never feel too obvious despite the game always making sure the player has what they need. It’s a slower, more methodical segment and sometimes even requires a bit of platforming. It’s a good balance to the survival aspects of needing water and food (the game does a really great job making sure the player has the basics down before introducing hunger) and the chase sequences which are fast paced and require quick thinking.

Remember how I said this differs from other survival games? Well because the Trebhum can’t take shelter there’s nothing to build that won’t get destroyed when the Cylinder starts rolling again. This means there’s no traditional way to grow food or make sure the Trebhum constantly have water. The good news is that water and food can be found in the environment, with water being found either in lakes and ponds or in plants and food being different plants or any fauna that doesn’t prey on the Trebhum themselves. Nothing ever seems too familiar with the world, with all the creatures seeming connected to each other but not really connected to anything on Earth, which is maybe why some things found in the world can be consumed by the Trebhum to turn them into mineral refining machines (a currency used to upgrade stats in shrines found throughout the world) and water production machines. By consuming items, a Trebhum who has undergone the water production mutation will take anything stored in its belly and process it into water. Most Trebhum can store three items in their belly and can shoot either water or items in a lackluster defense, eat items to mutate, and later combine items in order to allow certain mutations available at any time.

Now what am I forgetting?

OH RIGHT THE GIANT ****ING CYLINDER THAT IS DESTROYING EVERYTHING.

So, the pillar puts a temporary hiatus on the rolling temporarily. The good news is that normally this isn’t timed, and the player actually has control over when the Cylinder starts up again. There is a blue barrier that dictates the end of the space that can be safely explored without fear of the Cylinder starting up again. Once that line is crossed, the only place that is safe is the next pillar which is noted by a large, Sauron-esque light in the distance. Chase sequences are fast passed and require quick thinking. Any hesitation made is sure to lead to death so making sure the Trebhum have the right abilities and a full tummy and plenty of water as well as a game plan on how to get to the next tower is a necessity.

That’s if the Cylinder plays fair though. Sometimes the Cylinder doesn’t wait and will send in its servants to hunt the Trebhum. These are nightmarish monstrosities that can actually take away the Trebhum’s powers. Think the weird doll head on a spider body from Toy Story and that’s the vibe the servants give off. Maybe the big servant, The Mathematician, comes out and destroys the tower holding the Cylinder back, or maybe the Cylinder slowly causes a storm to prevent players from running too far away as it approaches. This all seems to be randomized, however I can’t confirm that. There are definitely scripted segments but sometimes I would die at one of these events and upon reloading my last save that event wouldn’t happen again.

Now all of this sounds like a mad man rambling, but the game actually has a story and lore that really brings this world together. It’s by no means normal (nothing ACE Team does is normal), but it follows the structure of classics like Lord of the Rings, with an unlikely group of young heroes (albeit expendable Trebhum) being tasked by the elders to stop an all encompassing evil force that is hellbent on destroying the world, and through their travels they unravel the history of their land. It’s actually quite touching at times with elder Trebhum asking the young heroes to make sure their kind has a future. With other species asking to simply be remembered as the Cylinder is hellbent on destroying everything. There are also more heady and bizarre aspects that are so out there and wild that I won’t spoil because they are so satisfying to get to.

All this being said, there are some complaints. The platforming segments can be frustrating at times, and while they are luckily very low in number, it is clear this game isn’t designed to be a platformer first and foremost. When the ability to permanently unlock a mutation for use at any time, some of the items needed to unlock mutations can’t be found as often as they were in the beginning of the game which I realize is a great lore aspect of not being able to return to where you once were, but it’s annoying to have all the rare ingredients but the common one can’t be found anymore. It means that some Trebhum just end up being used as storage and if they die all those ingredients are lost. I think the biggest issue however is that if the player misses a tower to stop the Cylinder, the game is basically over. I would have preferred to have the option to attempt to make it to the next pillar and have being locked out of potential mutations and ingredients be my punishment for failure to activate a tower.

Those are small complaints though. The Eternal Cylinder is a fever dream of a title that satisfies a lot of my tastes: exploration, puzzles, survival, lots of different abilities, truly alien landscapes, geometric shapes that desire uniformity through destruction of all of life, and hoarding. Oh, and quite a bit of heart. Nothing here feels so alien that I can’t feel something for this world except the familiar but nightmarish servants that stand out in this world. I think ACE Team has something really special here and I really can’t think of anything else that does all of what The Eternal Cylinder as good as The Eternal Cylinder does.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Truly alien world
  • Mutations are neat and varied
  • Great story
  • The Trebhum are weirdly endearing
  • The constant forward momentum is different for a survival game
  • Some neat puzzles and minor platforming
  • The nightmarish servants are some of the best enemy designs
Bad
  • Platforming isn’t always great
  • The Cylinder destroying a tower the player misses is game over
  • Some ingredients are hard to find when needed
9
Excellent
Written by
Anthony is the resident Canadian. He enjoys his chicken wings hot and drinks way too much Coca-Cola. His first game experience was on his father's Master System and he is a loyal SEGA fanboy at heart.