The new point-and-click mystery Rusty Lake: The Past Within is the latest entry in the long-running Rusty Lake series, also sometimes called the Cube Escape series. The Past Within is the first title to be a co-op only game, placing one player in the past and the other in the future. While the spooky puzzler has some interesting moments, most of the solves are quite simplistic, and depending on the role one is playing there are some dull moments of waiting throughout the two chapters that hurt immersion.
The Rusty Lake universe has built up a fairly rich tapestry of lore at this point, with the timeline spanning all the way from 1700 to 2020. This particular tale places the past player in 1926 following the death of Albert Vanderboom, who was strangled by his brother Frank over a game of chess. The past player - who assumes the role of Albert's daughter Rose - learns from a letter that a trusted partner in the future is going to help bring her father back to life. The large amount of lore accumulated over the years in the Rusty Lake universe means that this title will be best enjoyed by those familiar with the series - if this is a player's first Rusty Lake title, they may have trouble connecting to the characters and won't pick up on references to the Vanderboom family history.
Rusty Lake: The Past WIthin consists of two chapters. When players begin, the one in the past will have a whole room to explore, while the player in the future will have a mysterious cube to interact with; in the second chapter, these roles are reversed. While it's an interesting concept, the disparity in the amount of things players in the room have to investigate in the point-and-click mystery compared to the player with the cube can lead to some boring moments for the latter player.
The actual puzzling of Rusty Lake: The Past Within focuses on collecting blood, flesh, and bone from Albert in order to bring him back to life via the cube. Sadly, most of the progression is done less through actual puzzles and more through simply relaying directions back and forth, and many of the solutions are very straightforward. For example, one puzzle sees the player with the box in front of piano keys, and they're also given what are clearly radio dial positions. Players can easily deduce the room's player should interact with the radio, and what follows is one player reading dial positions and the other responding with corresponding piano keys given by the radio for a handful of rounds until the puzzle is solved. Compared to other puzzle-centric video games, this concept largely falls flat, at least in terms of challenge.
As a general concept, mandatory co-op games certainly aren't for everyone. Interestingly, Rusty Lake: The Past Within does not actually connect the two players via the internet, they simply load the game at the same time and will receive several confirmation prompts throughout the game to ensure both players on are on the same page. Like many co-op games, much of the fun to be derived from the mechanic is reliant upon the communication and cooperation skills of the two players - in this case, expect to be describing many different strange visuals.
Though Rusty Lake: The Past Within has many of the same themes of a horror video game, it's not an outright scary title. Its cartoony graphics make sure that nothing ever gets too disturbing, and some moments meant to be spooky actually look quite silly, but the game's soundtrack does a good job of setting a generally eerie tone throughout. The Past Within is quite short, with its two chapters clocking in at about two hours total, although there is some replayability to be had via the ability to choose between "Butterfly" or "Bee" mode, which changes the answers to the puzzles. Overall, at the price of only a few dollars, Rusty Lake: The Past Within will likely be a worthwhile enough experience for long-time fans of the series, but players not familiar with the story or those seeking a challenge should look elsewhere.
Rusty Lake: The Past Within is available for PC, Mac, iOS and Android devices, and comes to Nintendo Switch in the near future. Screen Rant was provided with a PC code for the purpose of this review.