I have a strange affinity for brutalism. It sucks you in, engulfs you in its stature, kills your spirit in such blunt, obvious ways, that I can’t help but be wowed by in all its oppressiveness. As an architectural styling, it is also supremely opportune for sick parkour tricks, something Léonard Lemaitre (Babbdi, Straftat), Nathan Grange and Niels Tiercelin all deeply understand with the volumetric VHOLUME, a “first-person parkour adventure set in a dystopian brutalist city where bureaucracy turns a simple task into an odyssey,” which now has a demo.
The demo isn’t a massive one, so there’s not all that much I can say about its supposed story (“In the derelict capital of Afro-Eurasia, ruled by an all-controlling Ministry, Robert embarks on a bureaucratic quest to restore his family’s revoked ration tickets” sounds juicy and suitable for the setting), but what is there is more than enough to get a strong feel for its “movement-centric gameplay.”
As previously noted by news overlord Edwin, there is an obvious Mirror’s Edgeness to the game given that it is sort of the gold standard for parkour games. I would probably describe VHOLUME as Mirror’s Edge Lite, not because it’s watered down or worse, just simplified. All you can do is run, jump, and slide, all three of which can be mixed and matched into wall running, clamournig up walls, and gaining such a great whoosh of speed as to feel dizzy.
Simple the inputs may be, but the complexity is there. The brutalist setting works incredibly well for route devising, as every single wall surface you can see can be run across. There are obvious main paths to take in the pair of levels present in the demo, and there are a plethora of shortcuts for you to figure out for yourself (some of which I wouldn’t advise as I did find a couple of sealings that I fell partially through).
It is a game very obviously prepped for speedrunning – you can race against the ghosts of others who have played the game, some of whom already seem too good for me to feel proud of my times. There is an oldschool quality to it in this sense, and it works wonders to push you to pull off risky maneuvers. Games like this live and die by their movement tech, and I think this one has the potential to live a thousand lives. I will gladly wait for its inevitable appearance at GDQ.
You can wishlist VHOLUME and try out the demo for yourself right here.
