Climbing games are having something of a moment: Fare like White Knuckle, Peak, and Cairn have all made big splashes (so to speak) and I maintain that Jusant is one of the most sadly overlooked games to come along in recent years. And now we’ve got Ascenders: Beyond the Peak joining that mix, with its own take on the cliffside life—but it’s a whole lot different than the others.Ascenders might be most aptly described as, what if Darkest Dungeon was a climbing sim? Thematically, that is. You’re not climbing solo, for one thing, but as the leader of a team—and as the leader, that means you’ll occasionally have to make some tough calls. Like, for instance, who’s going to die.As you might imagine, that’s a fraught call to make, and not just because of the obvious moral considerations. Cutting the rope lightens the load so the rest of the squad is less likely to get hauled down into the abyss, but that’s not just because you’ve got one less climber dangling from a rope: Any supplies or resources they were carrying gets the same express trip to the bottom, which is going to cause headaches later on. There’s also the psychological toll on those who remain, which will almost certainly make the continuing descent more difficult.Of course, you can always opt to withdraw from whatever precarious perch you find yourself clinging to and maybe save a life. But your carefully planned route upward may be lost as a result, potentially…
