Journey through the desolated kingdom of Penumbra and discover the hidden secrets of this long-forgotten land. Explore mystical temples, where you’ll need to master the art of movement to survive increasingly difficult 3D platforming challenges. During your adventure you’ll slash your way through daunting adversaries, encounter survivors and take on strange quests to collect valuable items.
Hardcore Platforming
Leap through deadly traps and master movement to navigate gradually demanding platforming challenges.
Lost in the Void
Far from Penumbra, there is a lost land called The Void. Find Void entrances throughout the world to uncover abstract platforming challenges that require great mastery to gather the valuable rewards hidden inside.
Slash Your Way Through Great Adversaries
Encounter dangerous enemies with distinct fighting styles and partake in intense combat-platforming boss fights.
A Haunting World
Travel through the perished world of Penumbra to explore unique areas filled with diverse enemies, sharp 3D platforming challenges, quests, collectibles and more.
Encounter Peculiar Survivors
A long time has passed since Penumbra fell into darkness, but those that survived the kingdom’s fall will aid your journey to unlock valuable rewards.
Collectibles
Once a rich and lush kingdom, Penumbra is filled with many collectibles and items to discover, loot, collect, sell, trade and purchase.
Upgrades
No great warrior can battle the dangers lurking in Penumbra without the proper equipment. Upgrade your swords, collect valuable amulets and unlock new abilities to transform into a fierce fighter.
Early on, your pint-sized hero is occasionally asked to assist the gods – under assault in their own temples – in entertaining little mini-dungeons full of puzzle rooms, keys in chests, and locked doors leading to new abilities and corrupted bosses.
While the Hollow Knight influence is clear elsewhere, these areas reminded me more of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker than anything else.
One challenging yet fun room had me using my newly minted double jump to perform a treacherous climb up a series of moving and disappearing platforms to reach the top before a timer shut the door, and one wrong move would send me hurtling back to the start, but I was pleased to find I could quickly course correct with a dash or wall-run to salvage my progress.
This deity-saving setup led me to believe I’d be helping out each of Blue Fire’s five gods in order to beat back the Shadow corrupting the castle, but to my dismay things quickly switched gears after only two temples.
Once equipped with wall-running and double jumping, Blue Fire abruptly drops the dungeon idea in favor of seeking out three boss “shadow lords” directly. Instead of facing new contained challenges, this had me mostly returning to earlier regions to press previously inactive buttons or collecting orbs to unlock boss doors – even with upgraded movement tech refreshing these locations, it felt like an unexpectedly quick sprint to the finish.
This pivot might have worked better if the first half of Blue Fire’s adventure lasted a bit longer, but I was happy to see at least one of the boss lieutenants had me searching through an unexplored region. And even in old locations, all the bosses proved to be a fun exercise in quickly dodging new types of attacks and putting my sustained aerial combat ability to the test.
