Threshold – A Simple, Brutal Machine

Julien Eveillé’s Threshold is, for lack of a better word, minimal. It features a single, small location, a small cast, basic gameplay mechanics, and only about an hour and a half of content.

In that way, and perhaps only in that way, Threshold is quite similar to many of my favorite games. Games like The Return of the Obra Dinn, or even Mouthwashing from earlier this year. Games that understand that a small scope and clear purpose is key.

Those games are some of my favorites because they understand the advantage of a small scope. To liken them to machines, they demonstrate that, with less moving parts, more care can be given to ensuring each individual moving part – that is, each individual aspect of a game – is refined and polished to perfection. In such a short amount of time, with such limited resources, a game can only accomplish so much, but it can – in the right hands – accomplish that task perfectly.

The downside of a small scope like that, however, is that small issues can rend the entire operation faulty; if something is wrong with the machine, it will not perform its task adequately, and it will be noticed. If the parts are too rudimentary, too basic, the machine will spurt and sputter, and eventually break when those simple parts give way.

Threshold is one such machine: simple. Overly so. And to its detriment. 

And that is why, as you’ve already seen, it has the score that it does; not because anything in it is bad, but because everything in it is just far too bare. 

Threshold does not have a bad narrative, but it has a story that is simultaneously too simple and too abstract even for its limited runtime. Threshold does not have weak aesthetics, but they lack the kind of stylization and panache that a “PSX-style” indie game needs to stand out in an exceptionally-crowded field. 

Even the things I really like about Threshold – from its gameplay that evokes a feeling of repetition and monotony to its brutalist, mysterious world – are hampered by a lack of fullness. The game does not go on long enough for the repetition of your tasks to set in. The game does not have time to extrapolate on its world any deeper than to explore its simplest lore and ideas.

But, enough talking in generalities: let us now look at specifics. Come, step with me, let’s cross the threshold, and see what it has to say for itself. Starting with…

TRAIN. MUST. RUN.

Even the arguable catchphrase of the game, the words you see scrawled along the passing walls of the elevator shaft that you ride up to reach the actual game, are unfulfilling. Every time I read them, my mind automatically places a “THE” before them. Maybe it’s a weird artifact of translation: the developer, Julian Eveillé, is French, and perhaps the French version of the phrase doesn’t sound as odd without its article. Maybe it’s intentional; some message about efficiency, ironically making the same metaphor that I am making about Threshold itself. And maybe Julian just felt that the words were just punchy enough to instill that sense of authoritarian dread that the game is going for.

Whatever the case, it didn’t work. It just got me wanting a “THE.”

The feeling of wanting that bit of definite grounding persisted as I stepped out of the elevator, and was immediately greeted by the train in question. A literally endless line of metal cars, steaming along out of a tunnel and then – after a short while – back into a tunnel. 

Before anything else, I thought, “I wonder what it is transporting?” I made a few guesses, already trying to piece together the mystery of the world of Threshold. It turns out, that was unnecessary: I figured it out on my first guess, even though I wouldn’t be able to verify that until the end of my playthrough. 

I won’t spoil it for you, but I wouldn’t brace for a particularly stunning revelation. There are facets to it that I don’t understand – though I’m unsure if they can be understood at all (metaphorically or literally) with what little information we are given – but overall, I was able to figure out the main reveal of the game and at least the basics of “what it means” within seconds of starting.

And therein lies the first and most devastating consequence of creating such a “simple machine”: it is both too obvious, and too opaque. It is too short to be able to harbor true secrets, and so it must play on tropes in order to “skip steps” and aid the player in understanding, in a literal sense, what is happening in the world. It must spell things out in an obvious and clear way. One of only two buildings on the small plot of land that the entire game takes place in exists only to answer questions. 

And, while the aesthetic of this bigger-on-the-inside chamber evokes TV static and Control’s Board, the answers they give are concise and exact. The mysterious voice – apparently your higher-ups – speaks plainly, with no intention of lying. This “Capital Chamber” is not mysterious; it is, instead, as clueless as it is direct, giving off less the vibe of an all-controlling, all-seeing governmental eye, and more the vibe of an idiot boss who is trying to figure out “what you did wrong” over the phone.

Part of this is because, at the same time as they provide all-too-clear answers to some questions, for others they seem to not know anything. Why did the train stop? They don’t know. Why are there fish in the water? They don’t know. What is over the wall that overlooks your compound? They can’t tell you.

It’s a nod to the “analyze it yourself” style of storytelling that indie games have embraced recently. Because it’s all “metaphorical” and “abstract.” I can already practically hear some pretentious snob in a video essay on YouTube saying “what matters isn’t what’s over the wall, but what the wall represents.”

But the game doesn’t give you the tools to analyze that. It can’t Because it is too simple. And so, it has to stop at the first step: presenting mysterious symbols and intriguing ideas, without any intention to deliver on them. Julian seems to know that other games get praise for their layered, unclear storytelling, and so it appears here. And if there is an answer to those esoteric questions, I wouldn’t be able to even begin to guess. 

Concrete Abstracts

Maybe I’m just dumb, and those deeper analyses went over my head. Or maybe I was too locked in on the bog-simple plot and themes that make themselves more apparent in Threshold, so that anything more complex was drilled out of me. Or maybe, just maybe, Threshold really doesn’t have anything to say beyond its most simple ideas, and I’m just overthinking what towers and walls and trains can mean beyond the obvious.

Not everything is so dour, of course. There are quite a few things to like about the game. Julian Eveillé has taken his full experience as a level designer to task, and created an entire world out of two buildings, some open space, a train, and a locker room.

This world, even in micro, is rich, and filled with details that are not only well-thought-out, but actively intriguing. And they really do exist to serve the main theme of the game – even if that theme is extremely obvious. The world is one of the places where things really do just fit, even if they are never extrapolated upon to take full advantage.

Another thing that just works is the gamefeel itself. For much of the game, you will be doing repetitive tasks: collecting white goo and fish, whistling to signal the train to increase in speed, collecting tickets, and breaking your teeth to suck down oxygen tubes. It is mundane and repetitive, reinforcing the theme and tone of the game excellently, even as you use the scarce downtime you scrounge for yourself to investigate the mystery of “What’s in the Train Cares?” (a mystery that, as we’ve established, isn’t really worth the payoff, but alas). 

The task of keeping the train running, keeping the river clean, and staying alive, all while trying to squeeze out time for your own interests, is the best part of the game, and could’ve made for a compelling experience in its own right if it felt like doing the job well served any purpose beyond mere progression.

But, like the rest of the game, it is let down by the game’s simplicity. This is no Papers, Please; things will not get more complex, nor will they become so mundane and trite as to send a message about work, as Threshold seems to want to do.

All of this, of course, leads to the ending, which is where things come together. And, really, this entire game could’ve been made by the ending: by learning what is in the train, and deciding what to do about that. If those ending reveals were good, almost everything else could’ve been made up for. In a short story, if the last line is a real zinger, it can make up for a lot of lost interst; it is no different for games.

So, what is the ending? I’ve hidden the discussion for those that wish to see if for yourselves, but for the rest of you:

ENDING SPOILERS

Near the end of the game, you climb onto the observation post, and look into the train cars. And inside, you see…

CORPSES!

Yes, really.

But you shouldn’t really be surprised. Threshold is a game where one of two things occurs at every junction: either the simplest thing occurs, or the most obscure. In this case, it is the simplest. You are working on a train line in order to send bodies… Somewhere (raising an actually interesting question, at least).

In one of the endings – unlocked very shortly after this “reveal” – you see that the front end of the train has been consumed. That somewhere, not that much further than where you do your tasks, something is eating the train, and the corpses inside. 

And what this is thing? Well, of course, that is unknown and unknowable, while at the same time being a very obvious analogy to certain real-world events that took place in 2021 (the year that Threshold is set).

And maybe there is something I’m not getting. Maybe the twist that it was bodies in the train all along isn’t actually the twist at all, and I’m supposed to intuit something else, something that I missed, something about the monster in the tunnel and the fish and the wall. And that – if I only figured all that out – I would’ve loved the game, its secrets having been now revealed to me and exposing a hidden complexity that was otherwise impossible to see.

Somehow, though, I doubt it. Somehow, I think the ending is just the same as the rest of the game: as simple as possible, and as opaque as possible.

With all that in mind, what else is there to say?

Threshold’s visual aesthetics are nothing to write home about, it honestly looks simple and a bit ugly, without anything to make it stand out amidst a sea of “PSX-style horror games” (even though Threshold isn’t really a horror game, aside from one really mean jumpscare).

Threshold’s audio design is more superior, with nearly every sound effect having a huge, weighty, and chilling effect.

Threshold’s writing does its job, but little else. What little writing there is in the game is maximally efficient, whether it be in the form of the stark, cold messages from your coworker Mo, or the cryptic musings of the Capital Chamber.

Speaking of Mo, Threshold’s characters (or, arguably, its one character) are certainly there, but they (or he) don’t exactly do much aside from yammer out concrete answers and cryptic “I dunnos” at you. For a game that feels like it wants to be called philosophical, it is very unengaged in any kind of ideological discussion. It is a game with many ideas that could be explored, inhabited by efficiency-minded brutalists.

Conclusion

And that’s about all we are left with. Threshold is not a bad game, not really. Nor is it a boring game. It does tell a story, and it uses its world and gameplay to enhance that story. And, for some people, those are the only metrics that matter. 

But, when it comes to the content of that story, and how it interacts with everything else, I am left wanting. I am left wanting complexity and clarity, at the same time. I want answers to questions that are blanks, and I want those answers to make me struggle. To surprise me, and leave me thinking. There is a version of Threshold that is that. A version where Julian was able to really scratch that itch, and to nail the art of subtle storytelling that truly does give you all that you need.

But this version of Threshold is not that one. It occasionally reflects that one, though. It reflects it in ideas that beg to be built upon, in lore that begs to be learned. It reflects that in characters that beg to express themselves fully, and in gameplay and pleads to be drawn out and expanded.

Threshold gets close, but its parts are too simple. And so, it cannot communicate with the depth and nuance that it so desperately needs. Like a train without windows, it simply rolls along, bypassing those complexities in favor of brevity and efficiency.

If you’d like to check out Threshold — and as a purely experiential game, you still might want to, despite this review — then you can find it on Steam here. You can even play a demo that already effectively conveys more than 2/3 of the game by itself, so thre is no reason not to try it for yourself.