ABOVE

A short, unsettling trip through daylight horror

ABOVE strands players in a sun-baked desert with a simple, ominous objective: activate a handful of power stations while something watches, and hunts, from the sky. It's a free, short psychological horror experience, and reviewers consistently describe its central hook, dread under bright daylight rather than in the dark, as effective. One reviewer captured the appeal directly: "It's a nightmare. Literally. It's surreal and like one of those nightmares that really sticks with you after you wake up. It doesn't make a lot of logical sense while you're having the nightmare, and you have the same sense/feeling of hopelessness." Another reviewer, tracking their playtime closely, noted the game "took me about 42 minutes to complete, and I managed to earn 10 out of the 20 achievements along the way," describing the experience so far as "a challenging experience with the early foundations of a rich" world.

Sound design carries the atmosphere

The most consistent praise across the review pool concerns audio. One reviewer wrote, "From the very start, this game builds a really strong atmosphere. The desert setting, visuals, and sound design all work together to keep you constantly tense. The audio is easily one of the highlights. You don't just see the threat, you hear it coming, which keeps you on edge even when nothing is [visible]." That specific design choice, letting sound carry the tension rather than relying purely on visual scares, is a common thread through the pool's positive reviews and appears to be the game's single strongest asset.

Movement friction draws the sharpest criticism

The most frequently repeated complaint in the pool concerns how the character physically moves through the world. One reviewer's pointed, sarcastic breakdown singled it out directly: "Make character running physics slow as CRYING FAT PIG... Make character stu[pi]dly running on his/her feet instead of moving on a car, even if character spawn in a working car in absurd place: at gas station." That same reviewer connected the sluggish movement to broken tension rather than intended dread: "watch how this CRYING FAT PIG trying to escape the 'STORM ABOVE'." For a game whose core loop depends on evading a pursuing threat, criticism of the underlying movement feel is a meaningful structural complaint rather than a minor nitpick.

An erratic threat that some found unfair rather than scary

Beyond movement, several reviewers flagged the actual behavior of the pursuing aerial threat as inconsistent in ways that undercut the horror rather than heightening it. One wrote, "It's established in the intro that whatever's in the sky... is attracted to magnetic pulses. Then why is it when I ping a power station on the other side of the map it just instantly jumps to my location. The movement of the UFO is erratic and there is no way to plan or outmaneuver it because of its speed." That reviewer ultimately gave up on finishing the game, concluding it wasn't worth the frustration. It's a specific, mechanically grounded complaint that stands in real tension with the pool's praise for the game's atmosphere, suggesting the threat's implementation doesn't always match its own established rules.

Thin on plot, and some reviewers say it shows

A separate strand of criticism concerns narrative substance rather than mechanics. One reviewer dismissed the story bluntly: "there is a plot, as strong as straw against the nuke, but you can say you have it. Dialogues are literally soap opera style, worst of... it's not a game. It's just minimum viable product." That's a harsh read, but it's echoed by the broader shape of the positive reviews too, most of which lean on atmosphere and sound rather than story or dialogue as their reason for recommending the game, suggesting the narrative layer is broadly considered the weakest part of the package even among fans.

A developer that's visibly listening

One of the more notable signals in the pool is a reviewer who explicitly changed their verdict after the developer responded to launch feedback. They wrote, "UPDATED review from NEG to POS. They listened and tracked down all commenters and reviewers. The game got lots of patches while listening to feedback, and this alone is worth a mention. The problems I was complaining about are either gone or vastly improved. Game runs perfectly, good looking, simp[le]." For a free release still absorbing early feedback, that kind of demonstrated responsiveness is a meaningfully positive signal for where the game is headed, even if some of the rougher edges documented elsewhere in the pool haven't been fully resolved for every player yet.

A single-quest structure that some found refreshingly efficient

The game's brevity split opinion, but a number of reviewers framed the tight, single-objective structure as a strength rather than a shortcoming for a free release. One wrote, "Excellent and free game. Let me tell you everything you need to know about this brief game with extremely good graphics. Basically, the game is 1 quest, where you have to turn on some 6 power station machines. You need to take cover below roofed things while you do so, because a UFO in the sky is s[earching for you]." That reviewer's matter-of-fact tone, treating the short, focused scope as simply what the game is rather than a missing feature, is a useful counterweight to the criticism about thin content: for a free horror experience built around one tense, repeatable idea, a tightly scoped single objective may be a more honest design choice than padding out a longer runtime with weaker material.

Verdict

ABOVE delivers real, effective dread through strong sound design and a genuinely unsettling desert setting, and being completely free makes its rough edges easy to forgive for most reviewers. Its sluggish movement, an erratic pursuing threat that doesn't always play by its own established rules, and thin plotting are real, specific complaints echoed across a meaningful slice of the negative reviews, and the game's very short runtime means there isn't much substance to fall back on once the atmosphere wears thin. Still, for a free horror experience with a developer visibly patching based on feedback, it's an easy recommendation for anyone curious about a short, atmospheric scare, with the understanding that the underlying mechanics are noticeably rougher than the atmosphere they're wrapped in.