Review: Idols of Ash

Was due to be called "Centipede" but they'd already made that.

Platforms Available: PC Platform Reviewed: PC Release Date: 9 Apr 2026 Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4450800/Idols_of_Ash/ There's a story to Idols of Ash, something to do with loss and a dead wife and whatnot, but it suffers in part due to being exceptionally abstract and also standing in comparison to the core gameplay you'll be faced with: You're a little man with a grappling hook and there's a big fucking centipede chasing after you.

The story is there to set a grim-dark mood, and it's fine enough for what it is but I can't say the final revelation to this short adventure was the thing that stuck in my head when I beat it for the first time, because I was much more engrossed in the grappling hook and the big fucking centipede chasing after you.

There's a beautiful King's Field style grimy atmosphere to the whole thing

Your goal is to descend, starting from the top and working your way all the way to the bottom of a vast chasm full of weird broken architecture that wouldn't look out of place in Dark Souls. It doesn't particularly make a lot of sense in terms of a real place, this giant hole in the ground full of bridges to nowhere, and arch ways pointing downward into nothingness, but at the same time it doesn't feel game-structured. There's a natural feel to the entirely unnatural spelunking fun pit you find yourself in.

You can walk, you can run, you can jump, you can throw a grapple hook - and that's basically everything at your disposal. Fall damage is here, but it's lenient enough to trick you into taking chips of health from risky jumps, while also cursing yourself because you're a bad jump away from dead and it was all because you didn't quite judge some of the distances as correctly as you thought. There are sporadic moments of healing dotted throughout the cavern, lit up like a yellow beacon, and your descent will often be bookmarked by attempting to reach these to keep you alive for another round of falling slightly too far.

Checkpoint or health? It'd be nice to get both but there's a big fucking centipede chasing after you.

The standard gameplay mode comes with much needed checkpoints, referencing back to Dark Souls again, you can consider these things as your bonfires: A place of respite in a land where one wrong move has you falling to your death. On reaching them, it'll mean you can continue from where you left off, the gaps between feeling like an arduous trek yet somehow feeling like a generous offering in equal measures.

The further down you go, the riskier things become. You might need to make some jumps into the void, throwing your grappling hook out toward a distant platform, your buttocks clenched tight enough to split a coconut while you desperately hope to hear the CLINK of the hook lodging itself into something, anything that will stop you from turning into soup 40 stories below.

Perhaps you'll need to descend your rope and swing to a new area, or perhaps you went the wrong way and can't find a safe spot to move on - instigating an arduous backtrack as you slowly climb your rope back from whence you came until... Fuck, can you hear that? That chittering noise? Oh hot jittery fuck I need to fucking move, I need to fucking move, shit it off, drop the hook, land on the concrete below, half my health gone - fuck fuck fuck - can I make this jump? Doesn't matter, need to take that leap and think about the next step while I'm airborne... Is that a branch? It is! Throw the hook throw the hook throw the hook throw thCLINK.

Further down the spiral, no centipedes here but that's only because I fell 10 stories a moment ago.

You'll dangle there in the silence for a while, darting your eyes across the concrete landscape to see if you can spot it. Your ears prickly, trying to judge how far away it is, and perhaps you'll even see it there in the distance from where you came - turning itself around to find the next route it can scuttle along to try and head you off.

This centipede is the thing that makes Idols of Ash a game where the story doesn't matter, because it generates a story every single time you hear those legs tapping across the wall, or the snarling dog-like chomps of its mouth as it gets closer still. It's menacing, and wonderfully designed, but its not necessarily what the centipede does to you that matters, it's what it forces you to do in order to get away from it.

Turning a corner only to realise this big twat is already here is not a nice feeling.

Idols of Ash is a difficult game, but it's also very free form in how you navigate it. Many a time have I fallen so hard and so heavily that I've almost closed my eyes at the very thought of hitting the floor, until a flailing hook shot accidentally snags the root of a tree right before my insides become my outsides. This ability to rectify your almost-death is balanced by your body slowly turning on its back as you descend fast, making it difficult to truly see what's available to snag.

The hook itself doesn't need to make a direct hit, if the rope falls over the other side of an obstacle, the weight of your body falling down will pull the hook upwards until it latches onto the lip of whatever you've hastily thrown it toward, lending itself perfectly to those Indiana Jones and the Temple of There's a Big Fucking Centipede Chasing You adventures you've always wanted to have.

While it's difficult, it's also exceptionally short, made shorter still if you accidentally fall through half of it and, by sheer chance, latch on to something. Do that enough times, and it doesn't matter how fast a giant man-eating centipede is, he isn't catching you out of the air any time soon.

But wait, there's more (centipedes)!

Completing the standard mode will unlock Nightmare mode, the true test of skill and luck and panic management. Checkpoints are removed and the centipede becomes a clever boy. Get that one done and dusted and you'll unlock reverse Nightmare mode, in which the world is turned upside down. You'll also unlock First Kiln, a horrific map that I can barely scratch the surface of, and that features multiple centipedes to make it all the more horrible to deal with.

First Kiln, strangely enough, shows me what I love about the other three modes. First Kiln is an almost linear feeling obstacle course with barely enough room to balance a single foot, let alone your entire body. I don't find a great deal of fun in it, even though I do keep going back to it to try (and fail). It's in Nightmare (and reverse Nightmare) that the joy is to be had because it gives you a playground of concrete and hard surfaces, it gives you a grappling hook, and it sends you on your merry way. 9 times out of 10, you'll smash your face into a floor because you got scared by a big insect, but that 10th time when you make it all the way to the bottom, you'll be filled with stories of bravery, daring-do and sheer bloody luck. It'll have you not caring about your dead wife, because the real dead wife was the big fucking centipede we ran away from along the way. Atmospheric, intense, and cheap as chips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUsMit1_JVU

Score: 7.4/10

Recommended if you like: Games where you climb up | Games where you climb down Not Recommended For: People hate big fucking centipedes chasing after you