The Last Campfire Gameplay Preview (From the Creators of No Man’s Sky)

The Last Campfire is a very well designed puzzle game from the creators of No Man’s Sky. Every aspect of the game is well made.

You start the game as a fading ember on a journey to reach a sacred place to move on. The game’s structure is very similar to a platformer such as Super Mario World. You have a main area to explore and within each area are forlorns, embers that have lost their way. Once you touch the forlorn, you are whisked away to a puzzle platforming level.

The puzzles are very solid. They aren’t too difficult to the point of being frustrating but present enough of a challenge. Each puzzle is unique as well and introduces many new mechanics and puzzle types.

Moving on from the puzzles, the overall presentation of the game is just fantastic. The art style is great. The embers are very cute and even the small touches like the animations and noises they make are quite charming. The audio design in the game is exceptional as well. It is one my personal pet peeves when a game blasts hyper active music on loop nonstop. This game isn’t afraid to embrace the silence, fill it in with ambient noises and a slow song, and then slowly ramp up to underscore certain areas and moments.

The writing of the game is also wholesome as well. Everything is narrated by a lovely voice but if it isn’t your thing, you have the option to turn it off. The game’s writing touches upon subjects like facing mortality, and dealing with depression in a way that is lighthearted while also injecting a little bit of silliness into the world. Nobody likes hamfisted delivery that borders on being pedantic and pretentious.

Overall, The Last Campfire is an incredibly well designed and well produced game. I found an incredible amount of attention to detail in almost every aspect of the game and it’s just a very charming, lovely, and wholesome journey.