While FuRyu’s ANOMALITH demo has been available on PC since July, its recent release on consoles and a new update warrants a more current look at it before the full release later this month. If you were skeptical about the studio’s decision to make a third-person shooter, the demo’s surprisingly promising world-building and gunplay might help put your mind at ease.
Throughout the roughly two-hour experience, the ANOMALITH demo does a great job of setting the stage for the game’s lore and world. You are given a brief introduction to protagonist Reona Minazuki and her Anomaly Zone Countermeasures Office coworkers, as well as front-row seat to how the government-backed agency you work for prioritizes data collection over human lives (this includes its employees and the victims trapped inside the Anomaly Zones). The Doomsday Clock, an anomalous object that provides a visual countdown of how much time humanity has left before it is wiped out, also gives a compelling incentive for Reona and her companions to continue their work by diving into Anomaly Zones.
Despite the Anomaly Zone Countermeasures Office’s focus on the bigger picture, the game does take measures to help you connect with the characters. Though Reona may seem like an unfeeling protagonist at first, interactions with her peers (especially the diver-turned-handler Yuiga Koda) allow her to be more expressive. These moments of levity are essential, as diving into Anomaly Zones is fraught with death and loss.
The anime-looking characters smoothly blend in with the more realistic looking liminal space backgrounds. While they’re not Backrooms-level horror, the liminal spaces do allow for some unique level design that turns the familiar hospital scene into a strange and distorted maze.
The demo begins with a short tutorial followed by a dive into the Kirishima Central Hospital. While both sections are quite linear, the hospital level has enough branching paths that give you room to explore. It’s worth noting that checking the in-game map might remove some of the demo’s sense of exploration and discovery, as you will immediately know which corridors lead to dead ends (where you can usually find useful items and gear) and which ones progress the story. However, if you’re the completionist type who wants to prioritize collecting everything in a level before moving on, the map can be a godsend.
Gunplay feels responsive and punchy, thanks to a combination of satisfying sound design, bullet registration, and gun recoil. Slow reloads, delays in weapon swapping, and the lack of movement abilities can make combat feel clunky sometimes, but this seems to be intentional as it lends to the survival aspect of the game.
In contrast to the gunplay, the demo’s melee combat is rather simple by comparison. A glowing enemy signals an incoming melee attack, which can be parried and countered by pressing the appropriate inputs. Since the damage from the base counterattack isn’t much to write home about, there also isn’t much incentive to use melee other than as an emergency option when enemies get too close.
While not as common as parrying and counterattacking, a passive ability allows you to perform a quick melee attack on stunned enemies hit by critical strikes from your long-range weapons. Though the demo only has a few melee options, a locked skill tree found in the hub area Workshop hints that the full release will allow for more close combat abilities and customization (more on that later).
Your guns and melee attacks aren’t worth much if you don’t have something to attack, and most of the Anomalies that you fight in the demo are essentially ANOMALITH’s version of zombies. These standard grunts slowly shamble toward you and swipe with their “arms” when they get within melee range. Each Anomaly type has unique attack patterns, weak points, and areas on their body that, once hit, drop useful resources like ammo. This forces you to adapt your combat style to their unique movesets and anatomy.
While the different Anomaly types add some variety, the gameplay loop can get repetitive. When exploring the hospital, you’ll eventually enter rooms that are filled with enemies or areas that lock you in before spawning them. You must defeat all of the enemies to progress, whereupon you can continue exploring. Thankfully, the demo does a good job of spacing these combat encounters and adding enough variety between them (either through new story developments or branching level design that leads to new discoveries) to make the experience feel less monotonous.
As you defeat enemies and explore, you’ll pick up items and gear that will be automatically placed in your Resident Evil 4-like storage case. While it looks like the limited storage space system was implemented so that players will be mindful about their resources, portal checkpoints found throughout the hospital let you easily send crafting materials to the Anomaly Zone Countermeasures Office hub area to free up your inventory. Sorting your inventory is also a breeze thanks to the auto-sort feature.
The Workshop in the demo’s hub area gives you a taste of ANOMALITH’s extensive weapon and skill customization options. Using the currency and items you obtain from dives, you can unlock and upgrade new items, clothing, weapons (including custom parts and gun skins), and skills for Reona. The number of customization and upgrade options here is staggering, and I found myself going back to the hospital level just to get more resources (which you can do once you defeat the final boss).
Speaking of the final boss, the demo’s climax enforces proper resource management and pattern recognition, making for an exciting and satisfying battle. I won’t spoil much of the experience, but you’ll need to pay close attention to the boss’s attack patterns and use the right weapons for each situation. There’s enough flexibility here that players with different loadouts will want to experiment to see what strategies work best for them.
I found myself pleasantly surprised by the ANOMALITH demo. FuRyu’s penchant for world-building is on full display, and the gunplay lends enough punch and weight to make it feel like a classic survival shooter game. The melee combat feels a bit too simple and out of place considering the other aspects of the demo lend themselves well to the genre and feel. But with enough upgrades, melee could give players the release they need after hoarding their ammunition and playing things safe.
Unfortunately, progress from the demo does not carry over to the full game. You can, however, develop an outfit set that can be used in the final release.
ANOMALITH is set to launch on October 28 for PC (Steam), PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. A free demo is available on all platforms.
