'Love Eternal' is an upcoming Xbox indie for masochists — where uncanny psychological horror meets brutal platforming

Over 11 years ago, Toby Alden, a designer under the studio name brlka, was working on an indie platformer simply named Love.

The game was a brutalist platformer with simplistic pixel art, an offering to the ‘masocore’ platformer genre that includes similar games like Electronic Super Joy and Super Meat Boy.

Love has since grown into something bigger than its humble beginnings, and brlka is now ready to release a full game — with support from the publisher Ysbryd Games — that features a full narrative in addition to frustratingly difficult platforming. Love Eternal is set to release on Xbox and PC on February 19.

Love Eternal is an atmospheric, narrative-driven horror game that tells the story of Maya, a suburban child who is plucked from her family home by a lonely and selfish deity. The game begins with Maya leaving her room to join her family at the dinner table, but things quickly go awry after a mysterious phone call.

"Love Eternal" is an upcoming Xbox indie for hardcore platformers - YouTube

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Maya finds herself locked away in an ancient castle, blocking her exit with a plethora of spikes, lasers, and other traps. While Maya is only a few pixels tall, the castle is a massive setting of hulking ruins, highlighting just how small and alone the tiny girl is in this environment. It creates an uncanny vibe that introduces horror to Love Eternal without relying on violence or other grotesque imagery.

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Love Eternal allows players to guide Maya through the corridors of the creepy ruins with simple platforming mechanics. Press a button to jump, hold the button to jump longer. But it doesn’t take long for more advanced platforming to work its way into the gameplay loop. Once per jump, Maya can flip to invert gravity and fall upward rather than down.

Once the gravity flip has been used, it can’t be used again until Maya touches the ground. There is an exception to that rule, however. There are red crystals found on some stages that allow Maya to regain the ability to flip a second time. Those crystals are the difference between clearing one of Love Eternal’s spike-laden rooms or constantly being stuck.

The physics for how Maya moves through Love Eternal are the same as they were in the game’s original version over a decade ago. However, new, more fluid animations have created an illusion for the player about how Maya moves through the cavernous spaces in the castle.

The animations in Love Eternal do not just have an effect on Maya’s movements — they also add to that feeling of loneliness and the surreal and unsettling atmosphere. Love Eternal features hand drawn pixel art cutscenes that explore themes surrounding family and loneliness by juxtaposing them with images that are surreal and subversive. It’s a quieter, more subtle take horror that leaves you feeling unsettled, without relying on blood, gore, or jump scares.

Love Eternal’s striking muted color palette and fluid pixel animations are joined by an uncomfortable, reverb-heavy soundtrack. The combination ultimately creates an atmosphere where the player feels compelled to continue exploring, but is also unnerved by what they see and hear.

Love Eternal developer brlka partnered with Ysbryd Games to bring the horror platformer to launch. Ysbryd Games is a smaller indie publisher known for titles like Va11-halla, World of Horror, and Demonschool. The publisher’s catalog of games is distinct and recognizable across multiple genres, but it almost always consists of stylish pixel-art titles with impactful narratives. The publisher doesn’t shy away from experimental games that highlight the human condition, making the partnership with brlka a good fit.

Players can try a free demo of Love Eternal on Steam right now, ahead of the game’s full release to Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles (as well as Steam and PlayStation) in February. While Love Eternal is available on past-gen consoles, it is not an Xbox Play Anywhere title.

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