The surreal look of Betrayer also melds with its low emphasis on instruction. You have a map (with points you can fast-travel between as you discover them), and the game indicates when you’ve discovered all the clues in an area, but beyond that there’s no directional arrow, HUD pop-ups, or other elements that guide you. What replaces this is a listening mechanic–at any point, you can tap a key to hear haunting white noise emanate from areas where clues can be found, the intensity of which depends on your proximity.
Considering the team’s modest size, I was impressed with how technically sound Betrayer’s combat was. Movement is comfortably arcadey (infinite sprint, full-speed backpedaling), and the archery handling feels similar to Far Cry 3: lightweight, with just a smidge of arrow-drop. The primary enemies, the conquistadors, collapse into ragdolled piles when you deal a killing blow, and they’re randomly placed in the world–when I died near a cliff and respawned, their quantity and position completely changed. Betrayer also adopts an element from Dark Souls–when you die, any carried money is left on your corpse. If you die again without retrieving it, that money is lost.
