I’m sorry, but this game, Apsulov: End of Gods, is possibly the worst commercially released video game I’ve played in 2019. How it received such a positive rating on Steam is beyond me. I tried to look at other positive reviews in pursuit of an answer, only to find that most of the positive things others have mentioned, did not match my experience whatsoever. Therefore, I decide to share my unpopular opinion here, just to provide a different voice.

The biggest issue with Apsulov: End of Gods is its heavily stretched length. An average first playthrough would take 6 hours, give or take 2 hours or so, depending on your playstyle and selected difficulty (took me 7.7 hours on the highest selectable difficulty + all collectibles), which doesn’t sound too long, you say? The problem is, nearly half the playtime will be spent on vents-crawling (the #1 sin in video game design, mark my words), backtracking and traversing through linear, identical pitch-black corridors, without any point of interest to explore or even look at.

Truth be told, I had my false hope up at some point, that’s when I first entered a multi-floored huge hub section, right after I’m about to ask for a refund after struggling through its uninspiring, vents-crawling infested opening. My naïveté kicked in at the time and I thought to myself “oh cool, maybe this game will improve from this point on, and even evolve into the old classic Resident Evil style of exploration?” Only hours later did I realize all those side rooms were just for show, they either contain a mere collectible or nothing at all. The rest of the game stays exactly the same, or even worse: near the end of the game, you’ll be backtracking the same half-hour-long route, three times back and forth! Successively!! Sadly, at that time, I already missed the refund period.

Apsulov: End of Gods could have been a better game (compared to its current state), if only they could compress it into a 3-hour-long journey by cutting all the lackluster padding parts. But they won’t, and this is exactly what you’ll get when a majority of players these days believed in so-called “length justifies price” ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Another thing that bugged me a lot is the graphic, which praised by many other reviewers. Sure, speaking of production value, its 3d modelling and texturing - albeit nothing impressive - is on par with industrial standard. And most of its monochrome scenes (such as Helheim) and well-lit areas (laboratory interior) are well done, I’ll give it that. But whenever it comes to dark areas – which consist the majority of the game, you’ll just get overly saturated Red/Green/Blue dotting a black screen, the overall palette is simply painful to watch, check the screenshot down below for a taste. To add insult to injury, an in-game mechanic, consider it as a night vision-esque visual filter which you’ll need to navigate 90% of the maps, adds a constantly shifting rainbow shade onto basically everything… The graphic quality is there, but the style just seemed cheap. What they truly lack, is a competent art director.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1937770022

And what are we talking about when we talk about horror games? It’s undeniable that the enemy design plays a huge part in it, they need to be gruesome, unsettling and threatening, both visually and psychologically. Just look at Silent Hill or The Evil Within (just the 1st, the sequel is garbage) for some good examples. Unfortunately, the enemy design of Apsulov: End of Gods missed the mark severely. You only have to deal with 4 types of enemies through the entire game, including a monkey-sized creature that looks just like a monkey… as well as a man-sized caterpillar (what caterpillar has to do with Norse mythology?). As you can see, there is nothing horrid about them (except one) visually, psychologically or even mechanically, they just don’t feel threatening at all. How is someone supposed to be scared by this?

Well, at least the sound design is decent, that’s the one thing I’d give them credit for. While traversing through all those boring identical pitch-black corridors, you always get some random ambient noises around you, making you constantly turning around to check if something sneaked up on you. It makes up the lack of sense of tension and danger, which the rest aspects of the game failed to deliver. However, it loses its magic prematurely whenever you get accustomed to its formula, realizing it’s just a design trick.

To sum it up, if by any chance you share a similar mindset with me, I would strongly recommend against this game. There are just so many other better games of this genre out there that’s worth your money and effort.

I'll preface this by saying that whoever came up with the concept for the game, and whoever handled the visuals, both did their jobs well. The idea for it is insanely cool in my book, and the enemies are well designed. That's about where the kudos ends though. The game is painfully short (I beat it in 5 hours going at a casual pace), features terrible voice acting, and repeated tropes.

At best, it's a walking simulator with a boring gimmick (Jarngreipr) to liven it up, which it only just barely does. All of the enemies you come across are ludicrously simple, with very hard, obvious limits to how far they chase you. While the intro gives the game a solid start, within fifteen minutes the game stops being scary and atmospheric, and starts being...well, just boring.

Not only is the game itself fairly underwhelming, but they set themselves up for failure within the game, too. They talk about how you need these nine artifact keys, but oh! They already collected seven of them. So you just have to worry about 2. They also boast 9 worlds, but since the magic number is 2 and not 9, you only ever see - you guessed it - two of them.

Minor spoilers
Even the mechanics that are intended to be high-stress/high-intensity - the elevator (which happens three times? Really?), running through helheim, hunting down the nine keepers (the only instance of 9 in the game that didn't get changed to 2, and it was the most tedious)...it was just dull.

Major spoilers (but really, it beats actually playing the game)
Even when you get the power of Hel, and it amps up the music to give you that awe-inspiring feeling...they just give you the power and then have you sit there and kill a few garbage tier enemies with the same point-click-dead mechanic you've been using since the first half hour.

Then you get to the end: the one point in the game where you're actually allowed to make a decision instead of staying on this on-the-rails snore fest...and the game ends.

Overall? Honestly can't recommend it at this price tag. MAYBE $5 if you don't mind walking simulators, bad voice acting, mediocre storytelling, and monotonous combat mechanics in favor of a cool concept...but from my end, I'd have been disappointed even if it was free.

I wanted to like Apsulov: End of Gods so much. After watching about the first 30 minutes online I decided right away I wanted to play through this game. Unfortunately, that's about the best part of it. What appears at a glance is a norse cyperpunk horror game filled with lore and oozing story and scares quickly turns into a linear slog of a game with little to no depth.

The entire game consist of two fetch quest, a stealth section, a maze, waiting on an elevator twice, and a boss fight between walking through the forgettable hallways and dealing with the occasional enemy that becomes as unthreatening as possible once you upgrade the Jarngreipr.

It wasn't a terrible game by any means there is good there and potential to be much more. But I would advise against paying full price if you do pick it up. Wait for a sale.

Don't buy this game if you're looking for a horror experience. The first few minutes of the game are not representative of the remaining 5-6 hours it takes to complete it.

The trailers and images shown in the steam store are the only impressive things about the game. Sadly, the core gameplay is a monotone hide and seek with three types of enemies in dark corridors.

Showed potential. In the end poorly executed. Too bad.

this one seems to have garnered a fair bit of praise from indie horror fans upon its release in 2019, but after spending a few hours playing it, I'm honestly not sure why. Sure, a sci-fi take on Norse mythology is novel territory for a horror game (though not for gaming in general, though nobody likes to be reminded of Too Human), but otherwise, it's just dull all around: from the level design, to the exposition dumps, to the enemy design, to the unenjoyable stealth mechanics, to the "shoot green energy" mechanic for environmental interaction. Save points can be fairly far apart too, which is frustrating when enemies kill you quickly (even on easy difficulty) or you accidentally stumble into into a bottomless pit. Recommend playing these devs' previous horror game, Unforgiving: A Northern Hymn, instead.

I really really want to give this game a positive review, but its just a sub-par horror game. The voice acting is jarring and pulls you out of the atmosphere, half the game was essentially a haunted house where you walk through and have sounds play from points where nothing is to try and scare you. You *see* scary things, that's for sure, but nothing really ever happens. I only had one genuine scare throughout the game, and it was inconsequential. It was cut just short from being a slog by only being 5 hours long, excluding the NG+.

The idea is great. I love the cyber-norse aesthetic here, and it works so well for a horror atmosphere, but it just was not handled properly.

I'm not quite sure why I finished the game. The stealth was boring, and the combat felt wimpy. The magic vision view distance is painfully low unless you keep deactivating and activating it again for the initial scan effect. Sadly, even that feels pretty unresponsive because of a slightly too long/poorly indicated cooldown. The setting sounds very cool on paper but ends up being mostly uninspired high-tech corridors and monolithic stone palaces. The plot felt like a series of check lists, it would've been a bigger surprise if the "big twist" hadn't been there, and the emotional beats about dead family members were lifeless.

I wanted to like the game, but after finishing it, all I had in my head was a list of complaints.

i want to recommend this game, but theres a few things that ruined it for me. the environments are beautiful and unique and well done graphically, the music and atmosphere are also great and these aspects really help make this an immersive game with a brooding feeling. but the dialogue, story, and characters. just no. the narrative of this game is like a play written and acted out by junior high school kids. "with great power i shall destroy you!" "no you cant destroy me, i am the one true ruler" etc. just cringe and lame. the mystery is over explained to the point of boredom (and cliche) and its like a 12 year old's power fantasy. and yes the obligatory twist you think is coming comes. yawn. this game would be way better if 80% of the dialogue was cut. everything else is alright enough.

Apsulov: End of Gods is norse mythology themed sci-fi story.
Scientists found way to enter worlds from norse mythology, but unfortunetly something came back with them to our world.
This game is advertised as horror, unfortunetly there is very little "horror" in it, it's mostly adventure game with poor stealth mechanics.

It has good story and the inclusion of norse mythology is kind of cool. Unfortunetly the core gameplay mechanics are monotone and booring.
Soon after start of game you will aquire cybernetic hand and from that point onward you solve every single problem by using the hand and only thing you care about is keeping your hand charged, that is really poor and boring mechanic.

I was on the fence if i should give this game thumbs up or thumbs down because the last 1/4 of game is really cool and kept me engaged. Also the begining is good. But more then half of game is monotome boredom spiced only by the norse mythology stuff.

If you are big fan of norse mythology then you might enjoy this game, otherwise look elsewhere. There is so many similiar but better games.