Beyond Words Review

The creators of my favourite gaming series of all time have returned. David Doak and Steve Ellis are two thoroughly bloody nice blokes, not only that, though, they are responsible for masterminding some of the greatest games of all time. Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and Timesplitters, to name a few. Before I get carried away, because this is a review of their new title, Beyond Words. I’m just glad to see them back making games in the industry, even if this is a totally different experience.

What Is Beyond Words?

If Scrabble and Balatro met on a night out, ended up in bed together and went on to have a baby, Beyond Words may just be the end product. As someone who collectively has probably over 500 hours in Balatro across several devices, I knew I might just love this game. Yes, I did buy Balatro on at least three separate occasions because I loved it that much. Enough about that, though; this is a shiny new game that I have been anticipating because I love experimenting with words as well.

Beyond Words may look very similar to Scrabble on the surface, but it goes much, much deeper than creating words and scoring from them. Whilst the premise of word placement is similar, it’s the roguelike structure that makes the game very addictive.

Gameplay

Beyond Words is set across several stages across a sprawling roadmap, with each level having its own unique challenge. The early boards start quite simply to ease you into how the game plays, but they become more difficult as you progress. This is where the clever design of word creation in sync with the roguelike element sets in, and you start to create your own strategies. The premise is simple on paper: work through nine portions of a level with a certain number of moves during each part. You’ll need to achieve a certain score to progress; if not, it’s game over, and you’ll need to give it another attempt.

Driving up your score is always great by creating more complex words, but it’s the power-ups you purchase that make the difference ultimately. Letter scoring follows the same logic as Scrabble, identified by the number in the bottom right. Powercards are a key component of how your run will go; they are essentially what Jokers are to Balatro. The order and combination of these can affect how you score; for instance, it could grant you bonus points from specific letters or a multiplier when you hit a certain word length. There are over 300 modifiers and abilities, so you’ll quickly find out what your favourites are.

Prepare yourself for the boss encounters, though; this is where the rules are bent, which changes how the board plays potentially. It’ll force you to think more, adapt your strategy and figure out how to get around tricky conditions. Letter bans, length restrictions, tile corruption and more can come to punish you in the late game. However, if you prepare yourself in advance and choose your items from the shop wisely, you may breeze through with ease.

Visuals & Audio

Beyond Words keeps the visual presentation very simplistic, but its range of bright, warm colours and alternative board designs keeps it fresh and beautiful to absorb. Powerups purchased from the shop all have their own visual identity, with a range of different pictures that make for a variance in each run. The developers have done impressive work in ensuring that the screen never appears too busy with its clear and concise UI design. Subtle background themes really make the game boards pop with colour.

Audio design suits the tone of the game with a calm and atmospheric soundtrack. It makes each run relaxing, and I find it the perfect game to zone out to with a podcast on in the background. Chimes that ring out when letter scoring takes place just sound awesome. There is nothing out of place when it comes to how the game sounds. Performance on Xbox Series X is superb with no visual hiccups whatsoever throughout my time with the game.

Final Thoughts

I just want to put out there that I’m not just scoring this exceptionally well because I love the creators of the game, but because it’s genuinely a bloody great game. Anyone who knows me understands that I am obsessed with roguelike games in any form. Beyond Words is a game that has endless hours of replayability and is one of those games where hours genuinely feel like minutes.

The only downside for me personally is that the game does not have Xbox Play Anywhere functionality. So instead, I went and purchased a copy on Steam as well; that’s how much I loved this one. Don’t sleep on this game if you’re into word-puzzlers and rougelikes. If you’d like to pick up the game on Xbox Series X/S for the absolute steal price of £12.99, you can do so HERE. For a limited time, though, you can pick it up for 20% discount, so pounce on that deal quickly.