Into the Well is Cuphead meets Hades set in a macabre world of heavily medicated cartoon misfits

If you're up for a challenge and want to repeatedly fight through a world of misguided toons, Into the Unwell is a different kind of action roguelite worth checking out.

Cards on the table. You’d probably need therapy, too, if your sole existence was to serve as somebody else’s cartoon creation and be regularly subjected to hammer smashes to the head, endless pits, and other hazardous animated antics week after week. Into the Unwell is a beautiful-looking 3D action roguelite that understands this perfectly, forcing its rubber hose heroes to work through such traumatic emotions the only way they know how: by literally kicking the teeth out of their cartoonish brethren over and over again.

Such a unique premise is more than enough to make this wacky actioner much more than just another Hades riff. That said, after diving into the Unwell multiple times, there’s still some room for improvement, particularly in the level of variety the game’s different weapon types allow for.

First thing’s first, I don’t think anybody can deny that, purely with regards to visual design alone, Into the Unwell stands firmly apart from what other indie roguelites are offering. It’s what made it stand out from the raft of other titles revealed at this year’s Summer Games Fest event.

Though the likes of Cupheadand Pizza Tower have done a good job transforming the childhood delight animated cartoons can bring into hard-as-nails video game stress, Into the Unwell is pushing this oddly specific envelope forward ever so slightly by taking the 1930s Fleisher animation style and retrofitting it onto a fully 3D third-person hack-and-slasher. Sure, this might not result in the true hand-drawn authenticity Cuphead established, but this method works to set the intended nostalgic tone.

Luckily, Into the Unwell doesn’t merely force Bugs Bunny to fight endless foes through a series of diverse biomes and merely call it a day. Always underlining the chaotic action that ensues is this strong story hook of misunderstood cartoon misfits undergoing therapy. I say this as someone who doesn’t usually play action roguelites for their narrative, but it’s what helped Hades stand apart, and as a subject matter, I see some of that similar potential in Into the Unwell.

Of course, being an early build means there’s still plenty unknown about where Dr. Bubz’ unique kind of therapy might lead, but it’s so far been equal parts fun and challenging to find out.

Each run in Into the Unwell starts out with you making arrangements in your home base of Looptown. Shaded black-and-white and full of ways to unlock character and weapon specific modifiers, I’d be lying if I said it was a nice place to hang out, but if anything, this left me even more determined to fight through all that awaits in the Unwell’s first biome.

Before that, though, there are several weapon types to choose from. I began my attempt using what’s called the Lolly Lobotomy, which serves as a standard swinging hammer, ideal for bonking enemies on the head. However, my favourite swiftly came to be the simply titled Scruffy, serving as Into the Unwell’s spear of sorts complete with a long reach and hits that don’t deal the most damage but still more than enough.

Into the action proper, and taking on waves of gone-off pizza slices, deranged hot dogs, and evil trash cans is a simple case of unleashing a mix of light attacks, heavy attacks, and dodging. It’s the latter than ends up arguably being the most important, though, since only by dodging can you hope to build up enough energy to deploy a weapon’s special attack.

For the Lolly Lobotomy this means being able to throw lollies at range, but I found the Scruffy’s ability to root itself into the floor of the ground and attack independently of my own actions much more useful. Sneakier players might prefer the Romeo and Juliet daggers’ ability to let you instantly teleport behind foes and stab them.

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Welcome to toon town

It makes for a style of action that isn’t all that surprising but is still engaging due to how well Into the Unwell’s excellent presentation interprets and translates these otherwise well-worn combat mechanics. It’s super fun to watch menacing hot dog squirt highly corrosive mustard at you from afar or a scrunched-up toothpaste tube plaster the ground in harmful fluid.

One constant throughout every encounter, however, is the all-powerful kick, which if aimed correctly can launch enemies off an island in an instant. So mighty is this kick that it’s tied to a cooldown, preventing you from undertaking an all-out booting spree to make a mockery of enemies during a typical run.

Obviously, any action roguelite is only as good as its randomised buffs, and in this instance Into the Unwell is already doing a pretty good job. Because while you always have the opportunity to up your health or purchase new rerolls mid-run using any teeth acquired, when finishing an encounter you’ll either be given a new mood to apply or a power-up that contains a powerful gameplay altering affect.

Moods like Happiness improve your max health and improve an enemy’s likelihood to become staggered, while Anger increases your physical damage output. Power-ups, meanwhile, are a lot more unpredictable, ranging from buffs that simply reduce your kick’s cooldown time or converting your character’s stagger strength to better damage output.

All these different systems working together, in addition to the various quirky character shops you can stumble into during a run, do well to give every new Into the Unwell run a slightly different flavour. Thank heavens, too, since one of my few criticisms right now is that enemy encounters themselves can get quite repetitive. A factor not helped by how spongey enemies feel in the early game, before you’ve been able to add enough new pill modifiers to your loadout or weapon-specific mods that will either make or break your intended playstyle.

Most island encounters, at least in the first biome, require you to take down up to 12 foes, which is a lot when one can sometimes require a number of hits to go down. Despite this, I’m confident that Into the Unwell can address this odd difficulty balance while in its planned early access period.

Into the Unwell is an undeniably inventive spin on the typical action roguelite formula. Although it does have a habit of leaning into the indie-centric genre’s conventional randomised structure, upgrade mechanics, and combat loop, the 1930s cartoon aesthetic does a lot to elevate it above the competition, with a genuinely eye-popping art style that shows no sign of getting old to me and an endless amount of variety with its character animations.

My only concern right now is whether its hack-and-slash combat will stay feeling as fresh as my character gets stronger and runs progress, but I’m eager to find out as more maniacal bosses and oddball worlds are revealed when Into the Unwell’s early access period eventually rolls around.