Don't Nod's Jusant Demo Review
Don't Nod recently announced its newest game Jusant by revealing its trailer during XBox Games Showcase 2023. Showing off impressively tall environments and highlighting somewhat otherworldly nature, it feels like a fresh setting for the studio. It was a beautiful and intriguing look into the surprise climbing video game due out this year. Lucky for us, Steam has a demo. Here are my thoughts.
Jusant's demo starts with the definition of the title. Jusant, a noun, is French for low tide. While cliche in an essay, I don’t mind this at all. I do not know French, and the demo likely doesn’t start at the very beginning of the game. It's low tide, and in this game, it’s implied a big unusual ebb. One might miss that the desolate, incredibly tall, vertical climb is not your average desert. But beside the definition, there is the call of seagulls and areas of barnacles found on the climb. It’s a quiet game, in its isolation and sound. You can hear your breath, your hand as it grasps a ledge, the wind as it blows past your body. Jusant is almost devoid of music for the majority of the game, with subtle musical cues, and high impact when the music full of awe does come through.
Besides the sounds, right off the bat, the visuals are great. The protagonist’s design has a brightness to it. The high saturation colors stand out from an arid landscape. The stylistic choice of no whites of the eyes makes the style stand out. The interior environments seem to be an eclectic style of construction site, oceanic, and alien. These ad hoc scaffolding areas were built for all to climb because the low tide seemingly upheaved the locals' lives. No one is seen in the demo (save for glimpses of your little water-blob friend), but there are a few notes and text-based messages. Those familiar with Don’t Nod’s massive hit Life is Strange or the lesser known Tell Me Why (available for free every Pride month) might wish for more interactivity of props. There is one “moment of reflection” as I like to call it, that is common in that genre, and it was peaceful. But if exploring via thoughts or item examination is lacking, that could be very intentional, Jusant’s genre is described as an action-puzzle climbing game on their website. Whoever Jusant is also tagged as an action-adventure game on Steam. So, it will have to be examined in the full game if the adventure elements are lighter.
I know, I know. Let’s get to the gameplay: climbing! Apologies in advance to those who boulder or rock climb that might suffer through my lack of knowledge and clunky wording. Another note: I used a controller, and it is highly recommended that you do. Climbing feels pretty good. The left hand is the left trigger, and the right hand is the right trigger. I wouldn’t say the controls are floaty, but I do feel like the experience is a little smoothed. The protagonist feels like a strong climber. It is easy to get a good flow in the beginning of the demo with an abundance of available handholds. The player can “look” with one of the joysticks to direct where they reach. Stamina is no worry at all in the start of the demo. Once embarking on some longer climbs or when jumping is needed, you’ll have to watch your gauge. The protagonist will also breathe a little heavier for a diegetic reminder to rest. While on a climb, simply clicking your left joystick down lets you rest just about anywhere. The character is shown shaking out the hands, which is fun and a thing I have seen real climbers do. I did not see what an actual fail state looked like, but when stamina was dire, there was heart racing and red blinking on the stamina meter.
There’s more depth to the aspects of the gameplay, like with the length of your rope, and adding pitons along the way so you don’t fall too far and lose too much progress if you lose grip. There’s elements of rappelling and ascending that are not realistic to physics, but fun for a game. Sometimes you need to descend or do a sort of wallrunning move to reach the next set of handholds. The demo explored mostly straightforward navigational routes except for a couple trickier spots closer to the end. From the trailer it seems more puzzle elements will be introduced. For example, growing, flowering stalks can take you higher, and seemingly magically-appearing vegetation can sprout into handholds.
Don’t Nod bills this game as a meditative climbing game in nature. I do think they will deliver that. The scenes and landscapes are really vast while on the climb. There doesn’t seem to be anything to rush you on your climb, and the visuals and music are calming. You explore a desert-like landscape in the demo, but there seems to be more biomes that will be explored throughout the game.
Any negatives or issues?
Handholds are not always the clearest, I do not have an issue with this myself but people with low vision may have trouble. A highlighted or more contrasted color scheme setting could be good for others
There was some graphical stuttering on my PC a few times (for reference I have RTX 2070, Ryzen 7 2700x). But to be honest, I don’t know much about PCs or running games.
I feel like once the panting audio to indicate lower stamina got stuck even after I rested.
Hints were repetitive, but this is a demo, and there was a setting to turn it off, so this is all good
You might wish more in the interiors were interactive
The pros:
Fun to climb, intuitive. Which is good, that’s the main mechanic!
Lovely style, saturated hues contrasted with expansive and more realistic landscapes.
Quiet game, relaxing. An hour passed without me noticing!
Potential to have unique lore, something different
Get the demo on Steam now, release date is planned for Fall 2023.
