From the moment the lights dim and pressure squeezes your lungs, Beneath by Camel 101, throws you into suffocating, unforgiving depths. The game is developed by two brothers whose love of horror and shooters is clear this is a survival first-person horror experience that isn’t content to hold your hand. The setup is deceptively simple: veteran diver Noah Quinn embarks on what should be a routine deep sea expedition, only to be trapped in a nightmare far beneath the waves. With his daughter’s life endangered, he must push through maddening visions, dwindling resources, and horrors that defy explanation.
Over the course of 3+ hours, Beneath challenges both veterans of the genre and fans of classic survival shooters, combining scarce ammo, punishing enemies, and environmental threats to keep tension high.
Fight Smart or Perish
Combat demands far more than trigger discipline, so pay attention to your surroundings you may never know where they might be popping up. You’ll juggle a modest arsenal crowbar, pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, grenades and health syringes with weapon upgrades scattered through the environment though its sparse. Some doors require power cells; you can only carry one at a time, so route planning matters. Use the crowbar to pry open paths or as a last-ditch melee choice. Shotguns dominate in close combat (my favorite weapon in the game) while the assault rifle offers crowd control, if you have the ammo. Grenades help with clustered foes but must be used judiciously.
Enemies arrive in many forms. Ruthless human soldiers stalk you with efficiency, while twisted Lovecraftian monstrosities break the mold of conventional threats. Some weapons work better against certain enemies. The environment itself becomes a tool such as shooting explosive barrels, shatter glass walls to create new paths, or funnel melee attackers into traps. Good thing is, some enemies will drop ammunitions still plan accordingly, and use everything to your advantage.
Strengths, Flaws, and Impressions
Playing Beneath feels like stepping into a tension-tight corridor from a bygone era of survival horror but sharpened for modern expectations. It nails moments of dread, surprise, and resource desperation. There were a few minor bugs and jarring moments in my run a texture flicker here, a missing collision box there but nothing that broke the experience still it is in development as its not a full release so developers are aware of these and have acknowledged them.
In its current state Beneath is more than promising. The horror is there and it creates that tense atmosphere , and it reclaims many of the genre’s best elements with sincerity and confidence. For fans of old-school, nerve-shredding shooters wrapped in Lovecraftian lore, this will be a welcome descent into the deep. I can say closing up near Halloween, this game is to try out, hopefully it comes out before then.
Beneath will be released for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
