This is an Early Access Review and as such opinions and scores are based solely on the state of the game at the time of review and subject to change as development progresses leading up to final release.
Every gaming generation has its signature tech. Most recently 4K and HDR were the tech terms getting tossed around. Once thought a luxury, 4K/HDR TV’s are now sub-$200 meaning that anyone who wants one has one, so it is time to move on and find the next revolution. Welcome to the world of “raytracing”, the new buzzword for PC gaming and the next generation of consoles coming in 2020. NVidia seems to be leading the charge when it comes to ray-tracing with their line of RTX cards specifically designed to support the new tech as well as their recent driver updates to their higher-end, last-gen cards to also support raytracing to a much lesser extent. Game devs were quick to adopt the technology in various ways. Games like Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Battlefield V were just a few games to make early use of the new technology for those lucky few to own RTX cards, but Sunside Games newest title, Stay in the Light is the first game to actually require it.
Now available on Steam Early Access, Stay in the Light is a bold experiment in ray-tracing technology disguised as part tech demo, part game beta for a wickedly cool dungeon crawler designed to bring even the most powerful video cards to their knees. The game is certainly a work in progress but is receiving significant updates. I played this the day it launched and in the few weeks since there have been major improvements to content, performance, and quality. While the game claims to run on the higher end GTX cards with the latest drivers you shouldn’t expect a satisfying experience. This is the first piece of software to even get my fans spinning on my RTX 2080ti card, and if I crank the settings up and switch to 4K resolution I can generate some serious heat, but the visuals are worth the BTU’s.
My only real issue with Stay in the Light is that it uses the scale setting in Windows. I run at 200% zoom so I can actually read my desktop, which throws this game totally off, so depending on what resolution you are running the game you are either zoomed in 4x on the game screen or if you are playing at 1080p on a 4K Windows resolution then the game is in this tiny window that takes up a fourth of your screen. This is a rookie mistake and needs to be fixed in the next update. Other than that the game runs quite well on my RTX 2080ti, and with most settings cranked up I can hit 50-90fps in most instances at 1080p. Trying to run in 4K requires significant tampering with the options to achieve a consistent 30fps, but performance improves with each update.
At this stage in development Stay in the Light is a simplistic dungeon crawler where you explore randomly generated dungeons searching for treasure and the exit, hopefully able to escape before getting insta-killed by Him, the giant ogre-like creature that stalks you with the same level of persistence and foreboding as Slender Man. With no means of combat, your only weapon is avoidance and light, and considering this game is realistically lit by the sun, once you enter the dungeon interior you are at the mercy of torchlight. Locating and lighting that first torch is always your first goal and finding other torches to light to increase the light level is a good way to keep Him at bay. As you explore the randomized dungeons, you’ll want to collect all the shiny gold loot lying around and trigger the blue orbs to reveal new passages leading to the exit. Then you get to do it all over again for as long as you can stay alive.
While you have no weapons, you do have chalk to mark your way so you don’t get lost in the maze-like corridors, as well as a mirror which I haven’t found a current use for; hopefully something will get added later like reflecting light at the ogre or even better, lose the ogre and replace with a Medusa that you have to avoid direct line of sight by using the mirror. I was surprised by the level of tension and even terror experienced while playing Stay in the Light. You’ll be moving around grabbing treasure then suddenly spot Him silhouetted in a doorway or lurking in the shadows off in a corner. Often, he will materialize off camera accompanied by a sound effect you will soon learn to dread. You will never see him move, as he only relocates when you aren’t watching him – nice way to avoid having to animate him. And just when you think you have avoided him…BOOM…he’s looming over your dead corpse. Try again…
Stay in the Light is not something you’ll play for hours on end or play every day. This is something you might revisit every time there is an update patch or when you want to show your friends what that $1,400 video card can do. Normally I would say that $15 is a bit salty for a glorified tech demo, but from what I’ve seen in the month this game has been available the developers are quite serious about evolving this into something more substantial. There’s always an inherent risk for any Early Access game, but I’m confident that Stay in the Light is on track to something we haven’t seen before when it comes to ray-traced gaming. If you already have an RTX card then you clearly are an early adopter for new technology, and I can’t think of a better game to put that tech to the test than Stay in the Light.
