Most horror games put you directly in danger, armed with weapons or forced to run from monsters. Below, Rusted Gods takes a different approach—you're the operator sitting safely in a control room, guiding an expedition team descending into an unknown abyss. Developed and published by FromSouthGames, this experimental first-person narrative horror game releases in Q3 2025 exclusively for PC via Steam. But safety is an illusion when the hole you're monitoring unleashes something that defies understanding, and the line between observer and victim becomes terrifyingly thin.
The Anomaly That Changed Everything
Below, Rusted Gods begins with a chilling setup delivered through administrative messages and found documentation. Three months and thirteen days ago, around 5:00 in the morning, everyone within kilometers felt an unexplainable cold. A massive cavity spontaneously opened in the earth—a pit descending into darkness that hadn't appeared on any measurements or instruments despite advanced detection equipment.
The year is 1978, and the discovery of this inexplicable abyss has drawn the attention of military and scientific authorities. Was it a natural geological phenomenon? A consequence of human activity? Or something far more sinister ? The sparse population surrounding the area makes determining the full extent of the anomaly's effects difficult, but one thing is certain: this is no ordinary hole in the ground.
You've been selected as the Operator tasked with overseeing a critical mission. An elite team of soldiers will descend into the newly discovered abyss, believed to lead to uncharted territories beneath the earth. Your role isn't to accompany them—you'll remain in a control room monitoring their progress from relative safety, ensuring the expedition's success and collecting data as they venture into the unknown.
Your Tools: Instruments of Observation and Dread
From your operator station, you have access to multiple pieces of equipment designed to monitor and support the expedition. The status monitor displays vital information about your squad's condition, allowing you to track their health, equipment status, and overall mission progress. When those readings start showing anomalous data, the dread sets in.
The radar system provides spatial awareness of the team's position as they descend. You'll watch the blips representing your soldiers move deeper into the abyss, the radar beeping softly as they progress. But radar can only tell you where they are—not what they're encountering.
Communication happens through a radio capable of scanning various frequencies. The soldiers transmit status updates, observations, and occasionally... concerning sounds that shouldn't exist. Sometimes communication becomes sporadic as they descend deeper, voices crackling with static or distorting in ways that suggest interference from something unnatural.
Additional equipment assists in your mission, each terminal and machine serving specific functions. The demo presents a fairly linear experience with limited interaction variation, but the full release promises expanded functionality for these instruments, giving players more agency in how they support—or fail—the expedition.
Interpreting Readings: When Numbers Become Nightmares
The core gameplay revolves around interpreting instrument readings and making decisions based on incomplete information. You're not directly controlling the soldiers' movements through the abyss—instead, you're analyzing data, listening to transmissions, and providing guidance when communication allows.
Strange anomalies have already been detected around the abyss, and the nature of what lies below remains completely unknown. As the expedition progresses, you'll need to remain vigilant, cross-reference multiple data sources, and piece together what's actually happening down there.
The tension comes from your helplessness. You can see problems developing through your instruments, hear the fear creeping into voice transmissions, and watch radar signatures behave impossibly—but you're separated from the action, unable to physically intervene. When a soldier reports dense fog reducing visibility to near zero, or when the structure of the tunnel changes in ways that defy geology, all you can do is document it and hope they make it through.
The game employs a branching narrative where your decisions influence outcomes. Do you advise caution or encourage faster progress? When readings show concerning anomalies, do you recommend pushing forward or retreating? These choices create different narrative paths with varying consequences for both the expedition and yourself.
The Control Room: Your Sanctuary and Prison
The control room itself becomes a character in the experience. When you first enter, the lights are off, gradually illuminating to reveal the array of equipment surrounding you. This tutorial-ization approach prevents overwhelming new players while building atmospheric tension—you're learning the tools you'll need to keep people alive.
The room is full of interactive elements you can examine and operate. Sound design enhances immersion—as you approach different pieces of equipment, you begin hearing their subtle operational sounds: radar pings, radio static, the hum of monitoring systems. These audio cues ground you in the space and make the control room feel alive.
At the center of it all is the hole. Visible from your control room, this massive cavity descends into darkness, its depths unknowable from your vantage point. Initially, it's just a hole—concerning but manageable. As tension builds and events spiral out of control, that hole begins to loom over you, becoming an ominous presence that's always there, always watching, always waiting.
The game prevents you from approaching too close. If you're brave—or foolish—enough to try pushing into the hole yourself, it resets your position and pushes you back out in a strange, unsettling manner. This boundary reinforces your role: you're the observer, the guide, not the explorer. But boundaries can break.
Descent Logs: Stories From the Dark
As the expedition progresses, you'll receive descent logs documenting their journey. "Access to the well has been achieved without incidents," an early transmission reports. The operation proceeds with caution and efficiency, no cause for concern. These calm, professional updates establish normalcy before everything goes wrong.
Deeper sections reveal environmental changes. "We've reached an area where the structure of the tunnel has changed. Visibility has been significantly reduced due to dense fog. We proceed with extreme caution". The language remains controlled, military discipline holding firm even as the situation deteriorates.
But between the words, you'll hear things that shouldn't be there. Background noise on audio recordings—sounds that might be geological phenomena, or might be something else entirely. The descent logs become increasingly concerning as your team ventures deeper, their observations documenting phenomena that challenge understanding.
Lovecraftian Horror Without Explicit Monsters
Below, Rusted Gods draws heavily from Lovecraftian horror traditions, focusing on the fear of the unknown rather than explicit monster encounters. The game builds dread through implication, incomplete information, and the gradual realization that something fundamentally wrong exists below.
You're facing the unimaginable without clear visual confirmation of what that actually means. Are there creatures down there? Dimensional anomalies? Ancient beings awakened by the opening of the cavity? The game trusts players to fill in the blanks with their own fears rather than showing everything directly.
This approach creates psychological horror that lingers. You're not being jump-scared by monsters—you're experiencing the slow-building terror of watching something go terribly wrong while being powerless to stop it. The tension comes from anticipation, from knowing disaster is approaching but not knowing its exact form.
Retro Aesthetic and VHS-Style Presentation
The game employs a retro 1970s-80s aesthetic complete with VHS-style visual filtering. CRT monitors, analog equipment, tape recorders, and period-appropriate technology create authentic atmosphere. This isn't just nostalgia—it's functional design that reinforces your isolation.
Modern communication technology doesn't exist here. No satellite phones, no digital data transmission, no real-time video feeds. You're dependent on radio transmissions, analog instruments, and the occasional status update to understand what's happening kilometers below. This technological limitation creates information gaps where horror thrives.
The VHS aesthetic also introduces visual artifacts—scan lines, color bleeding, tracking errors—that make you question whether that anomaly on your monitor is a technical glitch or something genuinely wrong. This ambiguity keeps you constantly uncertain, second-guessing every reading.
Minimal UI, Maximum Immersion
Below, Rusted Gods features extremely minimal UI elements. There's no cursor, no HUD cluttering your view until you get close enough to something interactive. When you approach an interactable object, a tiny white dot appears. Only when you're in range and properly positioned over the object does it expand to a full circle, indicating you can press E to interact.
This design creates smooth, polished interaction that feels intentional rather than gamified. You're operating machinery and instruments as if you're actually there, not clicking through menu interfaces. The angles and movement speeds of the camera feel natural, though some players note wanting additional rotation control for examining certain equipment.
The interaction system forces you to physically navigate the control room, approaching different stations to check readings, answer radio calls, or examine new data. This movement prevents the game from becoming a static screen-watching simulator—you're constantly shifting between instruments, cross-referencing information, trying to maintain situational awareness.
Demo Experience and Development Transparency
A substantial demo is currently available on both Steam and itch.io, offering approximately 30-40 minutes of gameplay. The demo provides a fairly linear, "on rails" experience with limited variation aside from some dialogue changes. However, FromSouthGames has been transparent about this being a preview slice rather than representative of the full game's branching potential.
The full version promises expanded features including branching narratives, more decision-making moments, additional areas to explore, and enhanced functionality for terminals and machines to give players greater agency and interaction. The developers are actively working on these additions based on community feedback.
FromSouthGames, a small two-person development team, has been engaging directly with players who stream or create content around the demo. They're offering early access keys before full release to content creators and have shown willingness to iterate based on player suggestions. This community-focused approach suggests a team genuinely invested in delivering a quality experience.
Why Below, Rusted Gods Matters
In a horror landscape dominated by running from monsters or shooting through waves of enemies, Below, Rusted Gods offers something genuinely different. The game explores powerlessness through observation—you're not the hero descending into danger, you're the person sending others down and hoping you've made the right calls.
This operator perspective creates unique psychological tension. Every decision carries weight because you're responsible for other lives, yet you're fundamentally disconnected from the consequences. When things go wrong, you experience it through fragmented transmissions and anomalous readings rather than direct confrontation.
The Lovecraftian approach to horror—suggesting rather than showing, implying rather than explaining—rewards players who engage with the atmosphere and fill in narrative gaps. It's cerebral horror that builds dread through mood and implication rather than relying on shock value.
Final Thoughts
Below, Rusted Gods releases in Q3 2025 for PC via Steam, bringing experimental narrative horror where you guide soldiers into an incomprehensible abyss from the relative safety of your control room. Developed by FromSouthGames with inspiration from Lovecraftian cosmic horror and retro 1970s aesthetics, the game promises branching narratives, instrument-based gameplay, and the slow-building terror of watching disaster unfold from a distance.
Whether you're drawn to unique horror premises, Lovecraftian cosmic dread, retro VHS aesthetics, or simply want to experience fear from a perspective that doesn't involve running through dark corridors, Below, Rusted Gods offers something worth exploring. The demo is available now, letting you experience the first descent into the mysterious cavity.
Just remember: when you're the operator, safety is relative. The hole doesn't care which side of the control room glass you're standing on.
