Possessor(s)

Among the countless independent games I’ve played across the years one of my favorites has got to be Hyper Light Drifter from Heart Machine. A studio founded by Alx Preston in 2013 and was initially made up of around nine developers. Growing overtime till there were more than 50 key members. Hyper Light Drifter was special despite not being the most original game out there. If you were to just look at a few clips of gameplay you would deduce it’s older Zelda titles but with more colorful visuals. Saying that is a disservice to what Hyper Light Drifter is. It’s a game that wants to connect to you not just with visuals, but atmosphere and tone. A game that explores the beauty leftover from a near world ending event. Letting you wander these ruins and try to piece together what possibly happened. Despite your main goal being quite simple the world was free to roam. You could choose whatever direction to go next after completing a short intro, and the game never spoonfeeds you info. Managing to build said world without a single line of dialogue. There’s also the protagonist of Hyper Light Drifter. A mute wanderer trying to stay together as an unknown disease tries to tear them apart from the inside. Preston wanted to capture how it felt having congenital heart disease all his life. The struggles that come with it.

Hyper Light Drifter is not only considered Heart Machine’s greatest piece of work, but one of the greatest indie games of all time. The studio started themselves off on a high note, but what they didn’t realize was that achieving that high note again would be difficult. Incredibly difficult as it turned out to be. Ever since their second game Solar Ash, the team has been having a rocky time with 2025 being the roughest year they’ve faced. In 2022, they showed off Hyper Light Breaker. The follow-up to Drifter, but as more information came out about the game, more people began to realize how little Hyper Light Breaker had in relation to its predecessor. It was planned to be an open third person action shooter with roguelike elements, and everything about that was the opposite of what made Drifter good. Launching into early access this year, and dear god it was worse than we thought. The solo experience being absolutely miserable with numerous difficulty curves that felt downright unfair and unsatisfying to overcome. Made even worse with numerous bugs and glitches making the game difficult to play. Hyper Light Breaker was a disaster and a bit recently Heart Machine announced all work on the game would be cancelled starting 2026.

The reason why is because financially Heart Machine hasn’t been doing well. They had to lay off 50 staff members a few months ago, and now the once decently sized studio is probably close to what it was back in 2013. It’s really sad that Heart Machine is going through this now, because they seem like people who are passionate about their craft. Hyper Light Breaker was a mess even before it was released, and while the majority of the staff were displeased with the direction of later stages some members seemed happy. I remember making a social media post about how it seemed like Heart Machine had little creative control over Hyper Light Breaker. They partnered with Gearbox for this title, and knowing who Gearbox is, Hyper Light Breaker sounded exactly like the type of title Gearbox wanted. Only for a member of Heart Machine to respond to the post I’d made, inform me that the developers had total creative control, and they were enjoying their time working on the early stages of the game. I acknowledged their statements and forgave them for what I stated. Hyper Light Breaker was not the game I wanted, but it’s better to see the team try something new rather than regurgitate the same type of game repeatedly. I’d rather see them experiment, which in some way is why I’ve grown to appreciate Solar Ash more now.

All of this is very heartbreaking to witness. Heart Machine trying to stand tall despite how tired their legs have gotten, but I know they have some magic left in them. In 2024, they announced a second game they were developing alongside Hyper Light Breaker. A smaller project more inline with the tighter focus their older titles had. It would be single player only, put good effort into its atmosphere and tone, and have you explore the aftermath of a catastrophic event. That game was Possessor(s) and this time it was a partnership between them and Devolver Digital. Folks known for helping publish small indie titles from teams with not a lot of money or name recognition. It was a game I tried to stay optimistic for despite setbacks Heart Machine faced. The game came out and critical reception for it was alright. Not the greatest, but the same can also be said about Hyper Light Drifter. It too had okay reviews, and became beloved with time. I finally got around to playing Possessor(s), and after the 12 hours it took to roll credits I can say that overall I was very pleased by it. There are some flaws that hold it back, but for the most part I think it’s close to that magic Heart Machine had. It’s the most mature title the team have made as its story dives into themes I’ve never seen any other video game explore. A story I’ll look back on for years for how it emotionally gripped me. Today we'll be talking about Possessor(s) and why you should check it out. Might as well be the last game Heart Machine make....

Story

Sanzu City, home to thousands of civilians and the high tech corporation named Agradyne. They produce batteries that help power the city’s many electronics and services, and many folks from around the world migrate here for the job opportunities provided. One such soul is Luca, a young teenager who moved here when she was just a baby. Her mother works for the company and does the best she can to put Luca through school so she can provide for herself one day. Luca makes friends with a boy named Kaz, and the two of them were pretty close for a while. However, one day they had a fallout and this occurs the same day of a literal fallout. An explosion happens at a nearby Agradyne facility, and from it emerges monstrous creatures. Demons from a plain beyond our own, and slowly they begin to wipe out all life they see. The city is evacuated, and those who aren’t able to escape are either torn apart or possessed by the demons. Transformed into hideous creatures that roam the streets. The demons also learn to possess inanimate objects making not a single place in the city safe. More explosions occur, and both Luca and Kaz are caught in them. Luca loses her legs and is unable to save Kaz as he is choked to death by a demon. She attempts to crawl to safety only to run into another person. More like another being, a humanoid demon who is bleeding his guts out right in front her. Struggling to stay alive in the ruins.

The demon is named Rhem, and he decides to make a deal with Luca seeing how he has no other choice. He’ll heal Luca’s wounds and give her a new pair of legs to walk with. In exchange she has to help him return to his homeworld. Luca agrees, Rhem fuses with her, and this knocks her out. Luca awakens a few months after the fallout occurs. The streets are now empty and a bright orange glow emits from a crater in Sanzu City. Rhem is now an entity only Luca can see and talk to aside from other demons, and together they venture deeper into enemy territory. Braving the many dangers they encounter. Remembering the world before and the lives they lived. What led to the argument between Luca and Paz, everything Luca regrets, and the connection Rhem once had. Another being he promised to be with and protect his whole life to only then fail in a way he had not hoped for. Luca and Rhem don’t have much in common at first, but soon they do. They learn of the trauma they’ve been through, and what it takes to overcome past experiences.

Gameplay

Despite the trailers making Possessor(s) look more like an action game with occasional moments of prancing around, the game is actually a metroidvania. Now you all know I love metroidvanias. It’s one of my favorite video game genres, and I always enjoy playing a new entry even if it does not bring anything new to the table. Much like Hyper Light Drifter this game doesn’t do all that much new, but at least attempts to be great at what it’s trying to do. I have major criticisms I plan to save up for the end, but Possessor(s) overall is a pretty solid metroidvania. Explore the world, unlock new powers to traverse said world with, find secrets, and fight enemies. Exploration and backtracking is key, and opening up a shortcut will lead to less backtracking. The game has a few soulslike systems, mainly that everytime you die you respawn at the last checkpoint you rested at. You also lose the souls you were carrying, or in the case of Possessor(s) it’s Chroma. This is the currency used to afford equipment upgrades and shop purchases, and if you die again before going back to the place you lost your Chroma it’s gone forever. Possessor(s) doesn’t have a level up system like Dark Souls and instead uses a banking system. There’s this little realm you can step into at a checkpoint, and within it is a pouch which you can store your collected Chroma. 

If you get injured too much in the field you can pop some painkillers, which is basically Estus in this game. You’ll explore a multitude of regions in this game each containing a variety of foes, a few unique mechanics, and a boss fight or two blocking your way of progression. The main goal is to locate four eyeballs each held by a demon general. These eyes are marked on your map, but the real challenge is figuring out how to reach them. Combat tries to do something interesting. One of  few main weapons is mapped to a main attack slot, and you have three slots for special attacks you can equip special equipment too. Possessor(s) attempts to mesh metroidvanias with the fighting game genre. Similar to Shinobi: Art of Vengeance puts fighting game combat into an action platformer. You choose how Luca approaches each foe, and you can upgrade weapons so you can equip affixes onto them. Perks for your character such as increased poise damage, ability to run faster, earn more Chroma from defeated enemies, and much more. Aside from that there’s not much else for me to say about the game. Possessor(s) just like Hyper Light Drifter is quite simple in terms of design. It’s how the entirety of the game plays out that makes this game highly discussable. Hopefully you can find the eyes, and seek the truth that lies deep below.

Thoughts

Possessor(s) is a game I adore despite its flaws. It is my second favorite game by Heart Machine, but it’s also probably the most conflicting game they’ve made. If you’ve read any of the reviews for Possessor(s) you would see that reception is mixed. That the game feels and lacks the polish multiple entries in the metroidvania genre has. The world is too confusing to explore even for a metroidvania. The combat feels finicky,sometimes the game does something you didn’t want to do, or doesn’t do it correctly. I admit most of these criticisms are valid. Possessor(s) is a game I enjoyed playing, but there were occasions where it got frustrating. However, my reasons are the exact opposite from most people. The game gives you the goal of finding four eyeballs right off the bat, and my first thought was to go in any direction I desired. Similar to how Hollow Knight lets you wander freely at certain points like the part where you have to find the three dreamers. I expected Possessor(s) to be open, and this led to the first two or four hours of the game ending up pretty rough. I enter a new area, get kicked around a bit, and realize I can’t traverse much of it because I lack a traversal power or keycard that prevents me from progressing onward. That is when I decided to consult a guide and realized the main path of is pretty linear.

If you just follow the main path itself the game takes around seven to nine hours to beat. For me it took twelve because I liked running around the world and finding as many secrets as I could. Now I have played linear metroidvania games before. 9 Years of Shadows, Owlboy, Moonscars, Yoku’s Island Express, etc. All of these I really liked and Possessor(s) is a good example of how less can be more. I like how it’s not trying to bloat itself with content and instead be focused like the rest of Heart Machine’s line-up of games. I think its lack of content leads to the atmosphere of the game working better, and we will talk about this shortly. However, some people are going to be disappointed by this. This year finally saw the release of Hollow Knight: Silskong, and a bit more earlier into 2025 we received Ender Magnolia. Two incredibly well made metroidvanias filled to the brim with content and secrets to uncover. The early hours of Possessor(s) set it up to be this free world to venture around, especially the goal of having four eyes to find. To uncover that it’s quite linear and the four eyes are honestly found in a distinct hour is underwhelming to say the least. It led to the early game having a hard time clicking with me. There’s a Reddit post asking whether Possessor(s) benefits from being a metroidnvania. My answer: Yeah kinda.

I think the world of Possessor(s) is nice to venture through despite how much backtracking you have to do. The vibes I got running around is the closest I felt to how Hyper Light Drifter made me feel when I initially played it all those years. There’s something majestic about exploring the leftovers from an apocalypse. The emptiness and isolation of it all. Wondering if you really are the only person left in this world. It makes running into other human life or those with a tad bit of sanity left in them all the more pleasant. Conversations with what little hope that remains. The NPCs while not all that many stand out. Trying to maintain composure and physical physique of their past life. A grandmother who holds onto the toys she took her grandchildren to buy during the outbreak. A high school professor keeps himself busy to forget the guilt of not being able to protect his students. Lesser demons who don’t really care about killing humans, and would rather try to rest easy in the ruins of the city. While obvious it’s revealed very early on that the batteries which civilians used for day to day life were produced using energy harvested from demons. The pain, autopsies, and experiments scientists performed to extract every ounce of juice they could from the demons. Rhem being one of these individuals, and as you spend more time conversing with Then you understand why he acts the way he does. His regrets and abuse he faced. 

The game has a distinct artistic flare. Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash were bright & colorful. Full of life whereas Possessor(s) is dark, grim, and empty. It makes the moments where there is color, or some form of light beaming down on the surface special. That there is hope to be found in this broken world. That if you can survive just a bit longer those colors and the light above will beam brighter. The soundtrack isn’t anything memorable. Nothing will ever match the tunes and sounds of Hyper Light Drifter, but what's here in Possessor(s) is soothing. Matching the tone and themes of the game. The combat, much like exploration, is another big aspect of this game. Oftentimes you’ll be locked into a room where you have to face a short handful of enemy waves. I like the ideas on the table. Customizing what attacks Luca is able to use, hitting and parrying enemies until you stagger them, and try to juggle them around a little. It reminds me a bit of this year’s Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, but the big difference is that it doesn’t feel as good. Attacks are finicky, heck even clunky at times. I wish there were a bar displaying when enemies stagger, and just when you start comboing they disintegrate. On one hand people will like how less spongy the enemies are in Possessor(s) than Shinobi. On the other hand, people aren’t allowed to be flexible for what is an easily customizable set of attacks and combos. 

There’s good enemy variety and I really love the designs, but the game doesn’t have enough. The game reuses enemy types in areas where they don’t make sense. Made sense for possessed books and globes to infest the high school. Doesn’t make sense that they’re infesting a hotel. It made sense for demonic television screens to infest laboratories or industrial realms. Not so much in the zoo and aquarium. It really sucks. I have these criticisms for basic encounters and combat, as a major highlight for me are the boss fights. Face offs against these cool ass looking creatures with good mechanics and design that push you to utilize the skills you’ve acquired. They’re fun to learn, and despite Possessor(s) being a challenging game I would never say it had Dark Souls levels of difficulty. Once you knock down attack patterns of bosses, or learn to be more prepared with enemy encounters the game is fairly easy. It has frustrating moments not like offering any invincibility frames after being hit leading to the most enemy type being ones that shoot multiple projectiles. Often the ones that are small, fly around, and kill you instantly if not careful. I can get over it though. I can get over the combat not being great, because there’s another game you can argue whose combat isn’t fantastic. That being Hyper Light Drifter.

Hyper Light Drifter does not have great combat, because it too wasn’t just a combat game. It was about the exploration, the world, venturing through it, and the vibes of doing so. Combat is less about reflexes and more about the feeling of having survived another encounter to then move on. It’s proof of how much a game can achieve even when what seems like core components aren’t the strongest aspect. In fact, I think games that are just combat are weaker than games that try to do quite a bit. There’s a soulslike I played recently called Thymesia, and while I liked the game it also proved why a soulslike with just combat the best. You need other aspects otherwise your game doesn’t stand out all that much. Hyper Light Drifter and Possessor(s) shows that even if your combat isn’t great you can make up for it through other means. Games can be more than the sum of their parts. Much like even if you don’t like combat in Dark Souls or Hollow Knight you can still appreciate other aspects like the lore, universe, art direction, and the list goes on. What really made me stick around with Possessor(s) is the main story and what it’s about. 

Possessor(s) is about Stockholm syndrome. It is about victims of abusive relationships who think the worst thing to do is break free. It is about them confronting the trauma they face, seeing what was wrong with it, and learning to move on instead of feeling guilt for their independent choices. Luca and Rhem are incredibly well written protagonists. As you learn more about them and the relationships they had before you understand why they act the way they do. Luca and Rhem just argue and swear at each other at first, but by the end they learn to comfort one another. Process their trauma, and healthily confront the consequences of breaking free. Spoilers for the rest of the story discussion here. You learn Kaz has an uncaring family, and Luca did the best she could to care for her friend. Only to learn Paz was an abusive person. Doing everything he could to run from problems he caused, and force Luca to take the blame. Pulling Luca away from her family,  and endangering her for his own safety. Luca tried to find a reason to support her friend when the reason to do so just kept dwindling. The guilt she felt being unable to prevent his death, and the thought that she’s a terrible person even though she never was. She was told that she was. Then you have Rhem, the abuse he went through, and the hope he clinged onto. That things would get better, and his former lover would stick up with him. Only to be lectured, betrayed, and tossed aside as if none of it mattered. That he is to blame for it all.

Normally I’m a gameplay person. I like talking about the design of games, and why fun games work the way they do. Possessor(s) has glaring issues, as much as the games I’ve been extremely critical with this year such as Everhood 2 or Doom: The Dark Ages. However, this is one of the few times I didn’t really care about the flaws of the game. It has a good setting, atmosphere, and message I don’t think I’ve seen a video game tell. I am not an abuse victim. I have faced multiple family lectures and arguments in the past though, and it led to connecting with the characters. I wanted to see the main characters get better. I wanted to help them with their personal struggles. I wanted them to move on from their past, and continue marching on through life. It’s what I’d do as well. All of this is why I like Possessor(s). My ability to recommend it is soft, but I think it’s worth playing nonetheless. This very well may be the last game Heart Machine made, and as their last game they did a pretty damn good job. A thought provoking piece that I will look back at just like how I look back at Hyper Light Drifter. This is a somber work of art. Please play it if you can. In the end I am going to give Possessor(s) a 9.5/10 for being superb.

9.5/10, Superb