In what is described by developer Li Create as "Doom But in Heaven", I found myself easily suckered into giving their first title Gates of Eden a shot. Boasting a gorgeous and fanciful visual style, I think this was the sweet poison that initially drew me in, like honied words for The Deceiver himself. With such a fantastic visual direction, and a very interesting pretense for a plot, surely there is a (in the exact words of the Li Creates website) "...polished and emotionally resonant experience(s)" to be had... right?

What you see is what you get. A single screen, your levels that unlock as you progress, and all of your settings. Right here. Don't think you can pause, by the way. You'll end up VERY familiar with this screen.

Unfortunately, no. Absolutely not. While at a glance, the art style looks brilliant, the repetitive nature, odd placement and sheer washing out of any detail from an all encompassing fog really puts a stain on any aspect of the visuals that would have been, and should have been enjoyable. The enemies, while initially interesting and something to look at- none of them really seem to match. A strange muddle of semi realistic, and over-the-top caricatures really lends for a visually confusing experience. So, while there is SOME variety, it's such a hodge-podge that it just ends up being a distraction, more than anything. As mentioned, while you can toggle the fog (it eats nearly everything), doing so will really pull the veil that somewhat cloaks the rough edges and repeated assets.

If this was intended to be story, or flavour text, it served as neither. Nor did the poor quality of assets. Backwards, upside down, jittery and easily destroyed.

In addition, you have a small selection of guns: A pistol, shotgun, rifle, uzis, and a rocket launcher. Doom Guy himself would instantly combust at the complete and utter lack of ANY semblance of cohesive or impactful gunplay. Rockets completely ignore the crosshair, guns generally have no logical range, and reloads seem unreliable and sloggish. Movement feels fairly decent, and may quite honestly be one of the only decent things in this game. The freedom of movement, however, only allows you to exploit the absolute mess of spaghetti code this game seems to be made out of. Jumping into places you shouldn't, and skirting around the levels outer parameters with little to no care. There is insanely confusing voicework, which I couldn't determine if it was original, an asset, or AI generated. No matter what the actual answer is, it just lacks context, feels generic, and has no bearing on whatever little "story" there may be. This brings me to another fascinating aspect of this game, and it's developer.

When you can look past the fog, you are left with some glaring buggy graphics and absolutely sack-of-potatoes dumb AI when it comes to enemy behaviours. Clipping, stacking, vibrating, and unable to attack. Not like I could hit them at point blank if I wanted to.

I took a deep dive into the developers website, looking for any semblance of story I could find explaining this game, or what was going on in the world it was in. No dialogue or the very few scrolls scattered about explained much, just quips and rambles - I really needed some sense of context, so I went looking for it. That being said I was elated to find that the developer has apparently written a book based around this game, and it's universe. So, figuring I could glean some context, I greedily dug into the sample provided, eager to figure out some details I was missing. Once I was had made it past the heartfelt forward and acknowledgements, I was not able to make it too far before I had an uncanny feeling that things were not quite as they appeared. After a quick check, it became abundantly clear that (at the very least) a large portion of this book is entirely made by AI. This, in conjunction with the appearance of the website and the contents of the actual game itself- everything left a very poor taste in my mouth. Even upon looking into the developer Jason Li himself, I sincerely question the legitimacy, as the image appears to be possibly generated (or at the very least heavily altered) as well.

I'm gonna hold your hand while I tell you this... but providing a map is amongst the very least of the worries you're going to have.

Ultimately, Gates of Eden, once you put together all the pieces, potentially seems like it may be AI generated or in the best case scenario: an asset flip. Lacking things as basic as an actual pause screen (hitting escape will simply send you back to the games main menu), a level selection screen, or even a settings menu (all of this is just strewn on the title screen), it is beyond easy to see where these conclusions can be drawn from. Generic guns magically floating in the air without the hands of a main protagonist to hold them, and strange hyper realistic lions summoned at the drop of a button, along with two random spells that are insanely overpowered compared to the weapons themselves - the list simply keeps going. I absolutely can't recommend this game in any way, shape, or form. Nothing makes sense, there is NO cohesive thought or story, and there is no substance to be had. Sadly, while the premise of this game based on the description and art had me eager to play, the reality was simply beyond disappointing.

Gates of Eden currently slated to release on September 19th of 2025. As of the writing of this article, no price has been listed.