Steam Next Fest Mini-Preview: Downhill's fourth wall-breaking shows a ton of promise

Some of my favorite moments in video games are when the game cheekily addresses the player behind the controls in some fun way. Guybrush Threepwood winking at the camera after a bad joke, games like OneShot and OFF addressing the player directly through dialogue from time to time, or the million indie horror games that mess with your real-life files and desktop to get you even further immersed in their thrills.

None have quite done it in the way Downhill has, where the direct relationship between the player and the character — whose story you're invading and whose body you're inhabiting — is key to everything around you.

Just the Facts

Developer: Sisterhood Games

Publisher: Sisterhood Games

Platform(s): PC

Genre: Choice-driven action RPG

Release Date: TBA

Downhill comes to us from the freshest of fresh teams. Sisterhood Games is an all-women indie team of people who have never made a game before. They say they learned most of their skills "on the job," but you could have fooled me. Sisterhood Games have the makings of a bold debut on their hands with Downhill, which just recently reached its funding goal on Kickstarter. I cannot wait to see where they go with the project.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In Downhill, night never comes for the citizens of the Dayworld, a land where three suns keep inhabitants stuck in perpetual daytime. Simultaneously, there exists Nightworld, a mysterious land stuck in darkness, populated by the horrifying and destructive Nyxes. These lands have been kept separate for thousands of years. But day and night can never stay too far apart, because we open our story with darkness seeping into Dayworld and Nyxes causing chaos in their wake.

We witness this watching Fade, a girl at the Trisun Temple, as she saves a runaway fox from these creatures and tries to warn the elders of the temple of the incoming trouble. Right as she's finally able to, darkness explodes in the main chamber and Nyxes surround her. Feeling the walls close in, you step into her mind and take control. You pull a bloody blade from Fade's eye, you destroy the surrounding enemies, and nothing is ever the same.

Fade is now a passenger in her own body, helpless to resist your control as you decide whether to fully kill the Nyx invaders or spare them through a more difficult process of healing, whether to support those in need or ignore them for your own glory, or whether to resurrect Fade when one more hit would have finished off a boss or an enemy — even if doing so is traumatic for her.

The relationship between player and character is very real and is put under a microscope as, together, you and Fade are destined to put an end to the slow destruction of the world. Sometimes, I'll lament how I'm treating a character as I go for some impossible collectible hidden behind waves of enemies, or put them through difficult platforming trials time and time again. But rarely do they ever ask me to stop directly. That's exactly the kind of relationship you end up in with Fade.

At one point in the demo, after incapacitating a tough boss, Fade asks you to stop; she requests you do a little more work to perform a ritual that may cleanse the Nyx you've left alive and potentially this beast that you were just fighting, too. Without the resources needed to perform this ritual, I needed to tediously cut down sunflowers in the fields to do it. But it was important to Fade, so I did. And she thanked me.

Having your gaming choices directly critiqued and questioned was so much more powerful than I could have expected. My investment was immediate and my emotions were compromised. I have to see Fade's story through and I need to help her fix what's broken. (And potentially help her in more personal matters, as the game's Kickstarter mentions there being a chance or two to "be her wingman.")

Outside of this relationship of either control or mutual respect between Fade and the player, Sisterhood Games delivers a satisfying action RPG that makes those narrative choices even more complicated. While in control of Fade, the player unlocks a few unique abilities within her. For one, there's the bloody blade she pulls out of her eye to deal damage. Pretty metal. Pretty fun. But probably most interesting is the ability to "nightwalk," which gives Fade access to the Nightworld temporarily and allows her to pass through obstacles and stun enemies in the Dayworld.

With your help, Fade's more than capable at dispatching the Nyx and getting through the corruption they bring with them. But it's up to the player to decide whether or not to kill them. When I first started playing, I was knocking enemies out and executing them after they hit the ground, because that's what you do in video games, right? I was being awarded with some kind of purple currency by doing it, so why would I stop?

I questioned the fact that the game was actively prompting me to press E to kill, but it wasn't until the cleansing ritual appeared that I understood what was going on. Choosing to kill, to benefit my RPG build and satiate my gamer instincts, was an option. Choosing to save them, to bypass the initial reward for eventually a different kind of payoff once able to perform the ritual, was another one. Each comes with its own skill tree, narrative consequences, and most importantly, different effects on my relationship with Fade.

One of the most interesting implementations of the gameplay choices affecting Fade comes in the revival mechanic I mentioned before. Any time you die, you are prompted with loading your last save or simply resurrecting Fade. Resurrection seems like a no-brainer, but the first time you do it, Fade talks about how horrifying the process was. How much it hurt her. She asks you to never do it again — and so I didn't. The developers say the act of resurrection will continually take a toll, and I'm fascinated by the concept of making players choose between their own convenience and the well-being of the character on the screen.

My investment was immediate and my emotions were compromised.

Having to break away from my gamer impulses because it might hurt Fade is not what I expected when I started this demo, but it is exactly why I can't wait to see more. It's one thing to make fun fourth wall-breaking narrative choices, and it's another to make them actually manifest into compelling gameplay systems. And Sisterhood Games are showing they can do both.

One thing that I can't wait to see more of is the world Fade lives in. The demo only gives a tiny glimpse at the Trisun Temple, a place for children who are sent away — and a place that Fade's already been kicked out of. You learn of a Queen who may be at the center of this sudden travesty and that the elders may have known about the incoming darkness and chose to ignore it.

And then there's the us of it all. The player's place in this world. How we're here and how we've possessed Fade. Is it as simple as this being the explanation for how all games work, in that we're always taking control of some hapless being left to our whims? Or do we have some mystical roots here, too? The questions are swirling, and I'm completely beguiled and want to know more.

Part of what's got me so hooked into this world is the simultaneously stunning and nostalgic pixel art vibes that Downhill employs. Whether it’s the almost RPG Maker-like look of the in-game sprites or the highly detailed character portraits that accompany dialogue, Sisterhood Games' artists are adapting to the gaming medium pretty damn well.

A look at the oppressive darkness of Downhill's Nightworld.

Downhill is one of the most intriguing games I've gotten my hands on in years, asking its players to confront the kinds of choices they make in every other game without a second glance by having its character directly address your actions and express their own will. It manifests the consequences of those choices in dynamic gameplay moments. And it's all coming from a team that's brand new to making games but has a strong and impressive vision of what they want this game to be.

If you'd like to support the game's development, Downhill's Kickstarter runs through July 4, 2025, and even though they've already hit their goal, every dollar added from here will undoubtedly help make this game even bigger and better. It's planned for a PC release with other platforms to be added as stretch goals are met. We need to see this game hit its potential, so wishlist, back it, and get in line with us while we wait for Downhill's launch.