Aphelion [REVIEW] – A Gripping but Flawed Sci-Fi Tale  

Let’s be real for a second: when science fiction tells us that Earth is on its last legs and humanity needs to pack its bags, things NEVER go smoothly, and this familiar trope is the jumping-off point for Aphelion. The team at Don’t Nod have a solid track record for delivering heavy-hitting stories, and with Aphelion, they even teamed up with the European Space Agency to give their space odyssey a bit of authentic flavour, so yeah, I’ve been pretty excited for it. The end result? A game that boasts a massive amount of heart and some truly gorgeous sights, but one that sometimes misses the mark when it comes to the gameplay. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

In Aphelion, the year is 2060, and, as mentioned, Earth is effectively done for. To find a way out of this mess, the Hope-01 mission is launched toward Persephone, a freshly discovered planet sitting at the very edge of the solar system. You play as the mission’s two leading astronauts, Ariane Montclair and Thomas Cross, and naturally, things go terribly wrong almost immediately. Their ship gets caught in some bizarre electromagnetic interference and crashes onto the alien surface, and, separated by the wreckage, the duo has to survive the freezing environment, figure out what exactly brought them down, and somehow find their way back to one another. 

One thing that immediately gives the narrative some weight is the connection between the two characters. Ariane and Thomas share a complicated, romantic history, and Ariane is carrying a heavy amount of guilt regarding how they left things before the mission. I know, I know, it’s something we’ve seen before, but it adds a genuine emotional pull to the experience – something that is strengthened by the voice acting from Vanessa Dolmen and Eric Geynes, which is nothing short of brilliant. They manage to ground the massive sci-fi stakes with deeply human emotions, making you genuinely care about whether they make it out alive. And sure, it is a bit of a shame that the supporting cast doesn’t quite match this high standard, occasionally sounding a bit flat, but the two protagonists easily carry the emotional weight to ensure you’ll be kept invested from beginning to end. 

From a presentation standpoint, Aphelion is absolutely gorgeous. Persephone is a desolate, frozen world, but the developers have managed to make it visually captivating, with the towering ice formations and deep chasms making you feel appropriately tiny as you explore its stunning yet treacherous surroundings. You will trudge through eerie frozen caves, navigate through massive storms, and watch as fragile ice dynamically cracks under your boots, with a deeply cinematic quality to the whole experience that’ll often leave you in awe. This is all amplified by an absolutely fantastic soundtrack that hits all of the right notes in all of the right places, adding a massive amount of tension to the journey. 

“If you can look past the flaws and some of the more annoying moments when playing as Ariane, the narrative payoff and gorgeous cinematic presentation make Aphelion absolutely worth your time.” 

When it comes to the gameplay, Aphelion splits your time between the two astronauts, and they both play very differently. Ariane handles the bulk of the action, with her segments all about athletic exploration, swinging across gaps with a grappling hook, climbing up cliff faces, and using a scanner to track electromagnetic waves. It sounds great on paper, but in practice, it is where the game starts to stumble a little. 

Moving Ariane around can just feel a bit clumsy, with the controls often veering to the clunky side and the jumping imprecise. You will frequently line up a jump only to watch her sail past a ledge and plummet to her death because the grabbing mechanics decided not to cooperate, and worse still is the game’s obsession with button prompts, with almost every small climb or grab requiring you to hit a quick-time event. Throw in an unforgiving checkpoint system that sends you way too far back after these cheap deaths – along with invisible walls that stop you from naturally exploring the beautiful environments – and it can make for some frustrating moments. 

Thomas, on the other hand, provides a much slower and arguably more enjoyable change of pace. Because he was badly injured in the crash and his oxygen tank was damaged, he cannot leap around like Ariane, with his chapters focused on desperate survival and puzzle-solving. You spend his sections hunting for air, tracking down door codes in abandoned facilities, and unravelling a mystery surrounding a secret, older mission that landed on the planet before you did, and with his segments avoiding the annoying platforming issues entirely, they make for a welcome change. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

But, of course, Persephone isn’t just empty ice – there is a sci-fi horror element sprinkled throughout the campaign in the form of a massive, sound-sensitive beast that stalks you. This creature is visually amazing, moving in a creepy, stuttering animation style that makes it feel truly otherworldly, and when it is hunting Ariane, you have to use your gadgets to manipulate the environment and distract it while staying dead silent. Early on, these encounters are incredibly tense… but there’s a catch. The monster’s AI can be very inconsistent… sometimes it ignores loud bangs, and other times it spots you for seemingly no reason. And by the final stretch of the game, these stealth sections are dragged out for far too long, killing the pacing just as the story is reaching its climax. Don’t get me wrong, it’s never awful, and when everything clicks, the moments with the monster are some of the best in the game. It’s just, much like some other aspects of the experience, a little inconsistent. 

Developer: Don’t Nod 
Publisher: Don’t Nod 
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, PC 
Website: https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/UP5898-PPSA13446_00-0865980915793507