GORI: Cuddly Carnage Preview: Too Much At Once

is putting all of its cards on the table. In marketing, it shows players a game that promises gore and viscera splattered across a cutesy canvas — hyperviolence, platforming challenges, and a desolate setting. Games that tote violence as their key factor have been coming thick and fast for years now, but the recent reboot series has proven that streamlining is possible, even in a genre that could just as easily have grown stale.

Now, as steps onto the scene, it intends to deliver on its varied inspirations to make a platforming, high-speed, high-octane violence simulator splattered in slime and gore. As Screen Rant took to 's opening levels, it became clear that the game is living up to its name, though it might need time to clean up an act that's as messy as its aesthetic in places.

It's hard to ignore 's multi-faceted visual style, especially when poking around in its strange world. The game takes place in a world ravaged by deadly Ultra Pets, animal replicas designed by Cool-Toyz Inc that would never need feeding or bathroom breaks. Infected by a maddening virus, it's up to Gori to take them down, equipped with a bladed hoverboard and penchant for violence. It's a simple concept, but frankly, that's all a game that demands sheer brutality needs, especially when the goal of is to hack and slash through as many nasty baddies as Angry Demon Studio can filter onto the screen.

This combination of adorable creatures and hyper-detail offers a horrific tinge to everything, and though the neon that bathes 's cyberpunk cities might rob them of their chance to make the player sincerely afraid, the design of the beasts are genuinely fantastic. The game's visuals subvert the cuteness it seems to be aiming for, but in doing so, it wipes cuteness in its entirety out. Not even Gori himself is free of this — is grim and foul.

Still Wakes The Deep is an atmospheric horror game with a solid story, albeit one that sticks too close to horror tropes for comfort.

There's an