Xbox indie game Ashen is strange and grey and beautiful

Ashen, an ID@Xbox title by Aurora 44 that had a hands-off presentation at E3 this year, has a flavour of Journey about it. Like thatgamecompany’s strange, beautiful indie game, Ashen features gently anonymised multiplayer, the exploration of a now lost and ruined civilisation, and themes of light and darkness.

Ashen has a behind the scenes matchmaking system where, with no loading screens or button prompts, another player will loom out of the washed out, silent forest. You won’t necessarily know who they are, and if you don’t want to play with them you can run away and, at a far enough distance, you’re disconnected and put back into the pool. Though there are puzzles that need two characters, an AI character will spawn in for these if you don’t have a buddy, so no content is locked for single player. 

There are many ways, however, that Ashen is unlike Journey, despite sharing a similar ethereal quality. ‘The world of Ashen is a sunless world,’ said art director Layton Miller, pointing out the giant rock towering over the player on screen, which was constantly erupting ash. ‘The ash is what illuminates the sky. The further you get from the rock, the darker it gets.’ Slipping inside a dungeon, the player must use a lantern, the light picking out tentacle-like tree roots and finding secret nooks and crannies.

Thus Ashen’s palette is a wash of muted colours, principally soft greys, that would have names like sea foam and church roof and elephant skin on a Dulux paint chart. That doesn’t mean it isn’t also a good looking environment. There are trees, mountains, fields of waving grass and slow moving rivers, but all with the saturation turned down.

 ‘We’re really quite inspired by our own country,’ said Miller, referencing that the Aurora 44 devs are all New Zealanders, and used to work at Weta Digital. ‘And we want to try and make the game itself as beautiful as we can.’ They have succeeded. It’s like sitting inside a rain cloud.

As one would imagine, that makes for a potentially hostile environment. The enemies in Ashen are unsettling eldritch monsters, with joints facing an unhappy direction or legs that are too spindly. Fights are stamina based, and weapons differ mainly in how they feel. Miller said that’s how they think players really choose weapons, rather than on their relative stats or damage. How does it feel when I swing it, how fast is it, and what kind of rhythm will I get into?

Apart from strange giant spiders or the occasional desperate human, there are boss fights to contend with, each of which will provide you with an important item that might open a door, uncover a secret, or help with a quest. In the demo we saw, two players defeated a being of darkness that leapt from pillars and burrowed into walls to hide from their lanterns. It dropped some small teeth, and when they were given to an NPC, sitting over a dark abyss, a truly giant woman rose from the depths, a bone mask over her face and a slight smile on her lips. She stared at the tiny protagonist for some moments, before disappearing again.

I have seen Ashen compared to Dark Souls, but it seems stranger than that. Not exactly scary, not exactly soothing either, Ashen is beautiful enough that you’re not really afraid of the darkness in it. Though you probably should be.