Rusty Lake returns with an ambitious co-op puzzle game The Past Within

We’re 15 games and a movie into the Rusty Lake series, a shared universe made up of dark puzzle games and creepy adventure clickers. The 16th* has just been announced. The Past Within is an ambitious entry into the often simple series, a two-player co-op game with time-travelling puzzle solving.

The trailer below is an atmospheric but sparse affair, but thankfully the Rusty Lake site has an update on what to expect: “Teaming up with a friend, travel through both past and future to piece together the mysteries surrounding Albert Vanderboom. Communicate what you see around you to help one another solve various puzzles and explore the worlds from different perspectives!”

Ah, the old, “What can you see?” ploy. I remember it well from my days as an amateur bomb disposal expert. The time-split puzzling is nicely themed, with a mixture of the classic Rusty Lake 2D puzzles and more technical 3D elements. That’s a whole extra dimension of puzzles to solve.

There’s no release date other than 2021 yet, a date that exists in the far future and you can’t tell me otherwise. But it’ll be out on Steam when it’s released. If you want to catch up with the series before the new one is released, you have a long way to go. Get cracking.

*If, like me, you enjoy random comparisons, then you’ll be thrilled to hear that it beats the Fast and Furious franchise by a whole six entries.