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Game
Game2024
Phantom Abyss
Developer Team WIBY
Phantom Abyss is a 2024 action-adventure video game developed by Team WIBY and published by Devolver Digital. Players attempt to escape trap-filled temples using a whip, like in the Indiana Jones franchise. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
216 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Sep 4, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
45
Mixed
78 positive · 96 negative
95% range 38–52%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 78 | 96 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 9 | 1 | 22 |
| Mastodon * | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 2 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
1,270 of 1,594 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
45% recommend · 79 yes, 97 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 176 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (1,817 of 2,237 positive).
Some reviewers enjoy the exploration, movement, and asynchronous multiplayer, finding the game fun despite repetition. [1][2][3][4]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
During Early Access this game changed quite a bit. People would complain it was too hard or too easy. They would add things in and take things out (RIP Long Whip). With the 1.0 release I think there's enough options in this now for casual players to enjoy the game and enthusiasts to challenge themselves. There's still the odd bug here and there, but those are fixable. It's fun exploring and seeing how others …
- [3]
PLEASE NOTE - THIS GAME IS ABANDONED. Regardless of that, though, I hope my playtime speaks for itself. Sure, the obstacles and such can get pretty repetitive at times. Sure, there are times where a run HAS to be abandoned because something spawned wrong and created a locked room that couldn't be passed. Sure, all you can really do once getting every upgrade and every whip is just.. keep playing Abyss mode. BUT, to …
- [10]
WARNING: this game has a game-breaking bug which renders most dungeons impossible to complete. Game is abandoned by the devs so it's in this sorry state in perpetuity. A shame since it was a really fun game in early access before all the bloat and bugs added in 1.0 release. AVOID AT ALL COSTS
- [20]
I remember getting this game when it first came out and I am genuinely so curious what happened. You'd think a game under Devolver Digital would've gotten a lot more recognition but this game barely peaked at 1,600 players and couldn't even hit 100 past early access. The concept at first was amazing and the potential was there. The music is dynamic and catchy with the environment and action. The movement and game …
- [11]
Game has been broken for over a year. Zero fixes applied. Do not buy.
Summarised from 34 of the 222 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 10, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
The crowd is split on Phantom Abyss: 79 recommend it, 97 don't. Which camp are you in?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Phantom Abyss received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. TechRadar called it "mediocre-at-best". Though they enjoyed the premise, they found the maps repetitive and frustrating. Polygon recommended it to fans of Mirror's Edge and said the gameplay is "undeniably fun" despite issues they had with the story, progression system, and user interface. Sports Illustrated praised the adrenaline-fueled gameplay and said it is "endlessly satisfying" to get through a trap-filled room unscathed. Though they enjoyed the level design and exploration, Hardcore Gamer felt that players were sometimes rushed through the rooms too fast to enjoy…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 216 · most liked first1.0 update sorta killed the vibe for me lots of changes that are worse than in previous versions. I would recommend this if it just rolled back a few updates. in its current state it offers very little reason to try new whips once you find the ones you like. In the previous versions of the game to spice up the run I could try a new whip and because the whip was cursed it adds a new extra challenge. And the reward for winning with the curse was a non cursed version of the whip where you just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hi, my name is Ada - I’ve worked in games for over 20 years. As well as my career work on games such as CRUSH, Fruit Ninja and Phantom Abyss, I have a slow burn Indie project: Lifeboat Earth - a simulation game about trying to balance the needs of civilisation and the sustainability of the planet.
neutral · AI labelView post →DO NOT BUY!!! ALWAYS ONLINE!!! GAME WILL DIE!!! this game ALWAYS needs to be ONLINE. if you have no internet, you CANNOT PLAY the game. if the servers ever go down, and it WILL because the game just left beta and it only got 200 players, you will be UNABLE TO PLAY IT EVER and you will lose EVERYTHING. the devs will of course say they'll support the servers "for the forseeable future" or "as long as they can", but as we've seen for many other always online games it's never true. they claim…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →WARNING: this game has a game-breaking bug which renders most dungeons impossible to complete. Game is abandoned by the devs so it's in this sorry state in perpetuity. A shame since it was a really fun game in early access before all the bloat and bugs added in 1.0 release. AVOID AT ALL COSTS
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sad what happened to this game really, when it first launched it was a good simple roguelike runner and was a lot of fun all they needed to do was add more content, more whips, a new area. Instead they remake the whole game, I feel like I'm playing a mobile game with this UI, the game shifted from a roguelike to a roguelite (now you can buy upgrades) and for some reason the temples feel very claustrophobic now (why) and between the different areas it feels almost the same, as before they were…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game has been broken for over a year. Zero fixes applied. Do not buy.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game used to be fun despite the bugs, then the devs didn't fix the bugs and quit development. Now it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Abandonware. DO NOT BUY.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Always sad to see a developer so completely fumble a great idea. Also pretty embarrassing when the finished product is significantly worse that than its early access launch period versions.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Abandonware. Fun concept could ve been worked better. Currently theres is gamebreaking bug that make most temples a dead end with a closed door Not recommend for the reasons above
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I remember getting this game when it first came out and I am genuinely so curious what happened. You'd think a game under Devolver Digital would've gotten a lot more recognition but this game barely peaked at 1,600 players and couldn't even hit 100 past early access. The concept at first was amazing and the potential was there. The music is dynamic and catchy with the environment and action. The movement and game flow felt perfect. But this game now is vastly different to what it should've…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →During Early Access this game changed quite a bit. People would complain it was too hard or too easy. They would add things in and take things out (RIP Long Whip). With the 1.0 release I think there's enough options in this now for casual players to enjoy the game and enthusiasts to challenge themselves. There's still the odd bug here and there, but those are fixable. It's fun exploring and seeing how others play/die.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was a blast in early access... what happened? It's a completely different game with less progression than on release, and it somehow way less fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i had unlocked up to the final boss run and then it told me i should delete save to be more compatible with the newest version now i have nothing and all my unlocks are gone..... great way to kill all that progress and my interest in the game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am so sad to give this game a negative review, because Phantom Abyss is everything I wanted out of a first-person procedural dungeon spelunking relic collecting game. First I gotta list everything I've noticed for the time I managed to tolerate: - The strafing camera tilt absolutely killed me at first, I could feel my eyeballs trying to compensate the jarring motion. I immediately knew this was going to give me a nasty motion sickness, and this was AFTER setting everything on the options…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Look how they massacred my boy... Wish I could just get back the game I paid for, instead the devs decided to completely reimagine and ruin one of the most simple and satisfying roguelikes ever. Booooooo
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game still feels like it’s in early access It’s times like these I rlly wish steam had a mixed review option This game still feels like it’s in early access, it feels further along than it used to, but this does NOT feel like the “finished version” of this game, at all I REALLY want to like this game, but the state it’s in being released as “1.0” in combination with the price drop gives me the feeling that the devs kinda just didn’t want to keep making it and threw something that’s…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game has been abandoned "Abyss Mode" is unplayable 99% of the time the maps are bugged by impassable door/wall forcing you to abandon the run. Other modes work fine tho but gets boring pretty fast.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So I guess for a while now the game devs just decided to let the levels have doors blocked by walls and make their game that prides itself on being 'winnable' by one person not winnable by anyone. Wanted to give the game I remembered enjoying another go but I guess nevermind. As far as I'm concerned it's a dead game
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After the latest big update, i would have to recommend against getting this. They reworked how most things function in this update, and in my opinion, the changes are mostly not fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game doesn’t have an offline mode and you may ask “don’t you guys have internet access?”, well, yes I do but no matter what I did, the connection kept failing to connect to the server which seems to be unresponsive now, making it a really short game as you can only play the tutorial.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Impossible to play offline, required connection to their servers at all times (while being effectively a single player game). Changed the game significantly towards the release and didn't left any older versions available. Avoid.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →no longer works
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I thought that Phantom Abyss was absolutely fine and enjoyable, and had played a bit while it was in EA, during which time I thought it had some solid promise. A utilitarian but interesting look to it, a solid audio design, and a mostly great feel in motion. However, upon hitting the third of the game's four areas, there's almost an apparent realisation that what is on offer might feel too short maybe, as there is an escalation not just in the damage taken, but the sheer numbers of traps and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its really sad, I actually enjoyed this game more when it first released in early access. The devs seem to not have much of an idea how to increase difficulty without making the game feel unfun, unfair, or annoying. After the update about a year ago that resulted in tons of negative reviews, im not really surprised 1.0 faces the same problems. Nothing except the core mechanics from years ago feels fleshed out. With how long this game has been in development I really feel like it needed more…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cool gimmick in that you see the phantoms of other players as they go through the same traps that you are, however I have played a few temples that are either new or randomly generated and there are just...no other phantoms? Without the gimmick, game gets repetitive and boring really quick, it feels like you're incentivized not to play now but later instead to see other phantoms in the same temples as you are. The devs should have added a few default phantoms that start with you, even in a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The big issue people will find is it's repetitiveness, but what the game gets right is very good. Running through temples, recognizing traps, and mastering the movement and tools at your disposal is very satisfying. What it gets wrong are minor in my opinion. After a few hours you start to recognize entire rooms (which is common in rougelikes), and a lot of people find there to be a steep learning curve for the later floors. I don't hate a learning curve, but if the reward you're going for is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game has a lot of potential, had a lot during the beta as well, in both versions of the game I found myself frustrated but at least in the beta I was able to complete the game fully and could avoid traps. Now the game forces you to take damage, forces you into traps, and worst of all the entire game feels lonely. No more are there ghosts that die in silly ways, now you have to just hope that one of the million rng maps have a ghost on it. I understand that is due to the servers being reset…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →PLEASE NOTE - THIS GAME IS ABANDONED. Regardless of that, though, I hope my playtime speaks for itself. Sure, the obstacles and such can get pretty repetitive at times. Sure, there are times where a run HAS to be abandoned because something spawned wrong and created a locked room that couldn't be passed. Sure, all you can really do once getting every upgrade and every whip is just.. keep playing Abyss mode. BUT, to me, this game is legitimately fun. This is probably one of the only games I've…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Does not currently work. Been unable to connect to servers for over a week.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After over two years of early access, Phantom Abyss developer Team WIBY is graduating the roguelite into 1.0, bringing overhauled features..
neutral · AI labelView post →Phantom Abyss 1.0 Brings 'Overhauled Adventure Mode' To Xbox Game Pass This Month.
neutral · AI labelView post →Mechanics and idea is very fun, but the devs ran off with the money. There's a bug where some dungeons are unclearable because of closed doors, very frustrating.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The devs made an awesome, exciting, temple parkour game where you use your smarts, observation, and reaction time to avoid deadly traps! Then toward the end of early access they inexplicably decided to ruin it. The game did not need a dash. It feels awful and makes the game way worse. Why'd they add roguelite progression when you can easily unlock it all in an afternoon? Devouring Rage is now ten times more obnoxious and ten times less interesting as he spawns 30 feet away repeatedly then…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you're thinking of buying it, don't! The developers have long abandoned the game and because of the way the game selects the dungeons for you, you will find **A LOT** of dungeons that are impossible to complete (not a skill issue, it's a bug when theres a wall when it's suposed to be a door)! Check out the community discussions on steam about this issue (unless the devs deleted all topics of this). Phantom Abyss used to be extremely fun, until the developers changed the focus of the game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game servers are down. There is no single player. The entire experience (2024/10/20) is "Target: ST_Production", "Waiting for connection". Discussion boards indicate this has been an ongoing issue. Do not buy, and if you have already, request a refund.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not only did they make a lot of questionable choices with 1.0, there's also still game breaking bugs that they clearly have no intention of fixing. It seems like the studio ran out of money and just wanted to push a 1.0 release and then abandon the game. You'll find 'Daily' temples, and regularly generated ones, that simply have no exit and no way to complete. I really wanted this game to be good, but after slow updates and a lackluster 1.0 release with little follow-up, I can't recommend…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is dead. And thats difficult to do for a singleplayer game with ghosts of other players. Initially runs in each room would have 1,2 or 3 trap types (ranged, melee, environment) and eventually a guardian chasing you down to force movement. A run that finished at a deeper end point or past your previous best; got you a trophy which would unlock a new whip or blessing. Your previous best was determined by a rank, each success increased your rank a little, a failure reduced it by a lot. You…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't bother. It used to be a fun game now it's just blocked doors and glitched runs. The beta version was better. There are a lot of curses that are just to annoying triple guardians shooting every 3 seconds is to much. I really did enjoy playing it's an addicting game to play but I just finally hit my limit and uninstalled.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I used to really enjoy this game in its prerelease stage, but as they added updates and changed mechanics I quickly dropped off in interest, and so did many others. I returned to try it again recently and it feels like a completely different game with the same feeling. As far as I can tell, the levels are no longer randomly generated, and I miss the mechanic where you could choose to get one of many lesser treasures or go deeper to try and find more rare ones without it being predetermined when…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TL;DR: this game was good during pre-release, but horrible balancing, the resulting bad level design, and dry progression have made it one of the worst games I have played in a while (which is really saying something because I tried playing "Werewolf the Apocalypse: Earthblood" just last week). This game was great during pre-release, which I played through Xbox game pass. There was a lot of room for different play styles, the rooms didn't feel like they were too filled with traps, and even…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It happened to me too, where you go into a run, and you cant even continue because a wall generated in front of a locked door, soooo you cant even continue. Its been less than a year since the game launched as of this writing and there are no further updates to fix bugs.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wanted to leave a review to offset all the bad reviews. Game is perfectly playable. Phantoms that you see in game are just prior records of attempts. Whether they've now made those offline and just part of the game or if WIBY or DD has left a server up for those of us who still play on occasion...there is no (and never was) any true multiplayer aspect. Phantoms are there for you to see how others failed and to help you avoid the same mistakes. For what it's worth, in late 2024, the game is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game was getting worse over the years and lost major player traction, now the servers aren't even up. Do not bother, not sure why this game is still up on the store.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the servers got shut down and the game is still for sale. SCAM AT THIS POINT. (the game didn't even come out a year a go but was in early access for many years wtf ). well although they let the game sit serverless for about a month after its release it is up and running again.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I loved this game in EA and put a lot of hours into it. I put it down for a bit and forgot about it, coming back and wondering how it had progressed. I was pretty disappointed. The core game is still fun, but there are issues with it that can't be overlooked. The "progression" system is pretty weak- slogging through small temples with specific whips. You get stuck with challenges that range in severity from minor annoyance to absolutely brutal and unfair feeling. The game makes no attempt…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DO NOT BUY IN ITS CURRENT STATE. Devs have seemingly abandoned the game and in its current state it has too many game breaking bugs that completely ruin the fun to make it even playable. Stages can generate with closed doors with no way to open them leading to dead ends that cause you to have to quit and start over hoping to get a generation that will allow you to be able to finish a single run. The game was better during the beta when the game seemed to actually be made by people…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Too many runs end because a wall is blocking an entrance and there is no way to progress. Unplayable in current state
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It the games current state it's more of a journey of frustration than fun trap dodging. Bouncing between random buffs that are useless or over powered, banes that just suck the fun out of the game or can just insta kill you if you are unlucky. Controls that feel like they don't even work half the time, for instance the W key will just not work randomly at the start of a floor, camera forcing you to look forward throwing you completely off balance, or the whip will just throw you under a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not sure why so many people are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on 1.0, the game is fun. Its a solid platformer, can't think of anything off the top of my head that would detract from that while I think the original system to unlock whips felt more rewarding I think the current way to unlock whips is fine
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hey there! Do you like skill based games? Do you like speedrunning? Do you like leaderboard based speedrunning games with roguelite upgrade systems that you have to grind out by going out of your way to search for secrets while the game is incentivising you to go through said stages as fast as possible by several different gameplay mechanics which sometimes include a literal doomclock? Do you want additional challanges with that like having almost all of the chest you find being empty, not…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm kind of 50/50 on the game. I used to really love the game when it was early access when the only mode was which is now Abyss mode. Every whip had a curse and you had to beat a temple to remove the curse and then you had an awesome whip that your worked to make great. In the 1.0, they said that they removed the curses from the whips but it's not really true. Now, on a run, you have these modifiers that are pretty much the same as the curses from before so now no matter what you do, you are…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Looks like game has been out 2 years and it was a rogue-like on sale, so I purchased. As I was playing tutorial, I start experiencing horrifying REVERB on REPEATING/GLITCHING sounds, I continue playing and get some item after getting my first set of blessings and the games FREEZES. I restart the game and it puts me in the area you obviously view your items and launch new missions from. The issue is I CAN'T START MISSIONS. I AM TRAPPED IN THIS AREA!!! No big deal, I'll just refund the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love this game so much but it is broken and I don't know if it will ever get fixed. I have run into 5 unbeatable dungeons because of the blocked door glitch in the last 2 hours of playing. This problem is serious and makes the game nearly unplayable. People have known about this bug since the release of 1.0. As someone who has played the alpha and was excited for the full release I have recommended this game to people in the past and now this glitch has made me regret this. I would be…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tries very hard to be a slick platformer but forgot about the part where movement tech is supposed to be intuitive, consistent and fun. Don't let the "asynchronous multiplayer" aspect fool you, it's nothing more than the "see other players' past ghosts" gag featured in FromSoft games, and the gimmick of slowing down to pay attention to them is counterintuitive to the rest of the game's design to explore as much as you can, as fast as you can. Movement is bland at the best of times and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the spawns are buged, you can spawn inside a Guardian. 4/10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The core gameplay is great but 1.0 sucks. Random modifiers can ♥♥♥♥ you over and the user interface just keeps getting more convoluted. Sad to see a great title broken for no reason, hope devs fix it soon
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Imagine if Super Meat Boy made you wait genuinely 30 seconds after dying to retry. Playing on harder areas has solidified my negative review due to design failures like that. I wanna like it. There's good stuff here but it's scattered. The whip options are boring, double jump feels like the main choice. The higher difficulties feel like garbage, just overloading traps everywhere. Odd performance issues and audio bugs. The online component is kinda squandered after awhile, since there aren't…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I 100% this game on Xbox and bought it on steam at 1.0 to see how it had improved. It didn't. It feels way worse. game is way more focused on dealing with garbage "challenges" (♥♥♥♥ like if you dont dash you take damage! omg!) now than mastery of the rooms. Removal of rank system is terrible, and the "upgrade pool" so that the game is focused on grind instead of mastery is terrible. Why?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I find the masked defiler too annoying to continue. It was bad enough on it's own, but replicating it 4 times and blocking off entire hallways was more than I want to deal with.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After playing so much indiana jones these past few days, it makes me even sadder how Phantom Abyss really dropped the ball post launch Was an excellent game that had so much potential but just never got updates or support to keep it going
negative · AI labelView post →
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