“Tell Meemaw Tacket that Sigg is doing alright. Happy. Still reads too.”
I rarely buy games on pure impulse nowadays. I think the last time I did was a year ago, which led to me covering Astrolancer, a fun tribute to The Guardian Legend. It’s the lack of time, mostly, on top of having tons of other things I want to get around to checking out. But I broke that habit recently when I suddenly stumbled across Brush Burial: Gutter World, and I’m happy to say that it was worth doing.
Developed and self-published by Knife Demon Software, Brush Burial: Gutter World is actually the second entry in the Brush Burial series, following its titular debut that originally released in 2023. But whereas its predecessor followed a more strictly linear, narrative-leaning formula, Gutter World instead breaks away from this for something more compartmentalized and immediately replayable. It also has a full wardrobe you can unlock. We’ll get to that. For now, let’s talk about the game itself.
An Immersive Sim in a Sinful World
There’s no sense in burying the lede here. Not much is going on story-wise in Brush Burial: Gutter World, for better or worse. A few things are made readily apparent to you very quickly, at least. You are Fennel — a mysterious devil living on the outskirts of society, compelled to use her deadly talents and grey morals to make a dishonest living in a world that’s just as alien and strange as she is. From her apartment, she takes on a variety of contracts that put her face to face with armed security guards, Hellionaires, and other unfamiliar forces that stand in her way.
The overall atmosphere is fairly gritty and seedy, but not to the same kind of extreme you’d see in something like Manhunt. There’s trash everywhere, most friendly civilians are fairly miserable, and the prominence of armed bodies wandering the streets only makes things feel more depressing. You can find some extra bits of worldbuilding within the contracts themselves, and by chatting up the few non-hostile denizens you can come across. But the story really takes a back seat to the actual gameplay.
Brush Burial: Gutter World is a bite-sized immersive sim. For those unfamiliar, “immersive sims” are games that often present at least two different ways of solving a problem or progressing forward, leaving you to figure out what kind of approach to take. You can talk to people to get more info, sleuth and sneak around for alternative paths, bash anyone you meet with a club, and so on. The limits are usually just whatever tools you have at your immediate disposal. But while other immersive sims stretch this idea over a sprawling campaign, Brush Burial: Gutter World instead places you in a level of your own choosing, with only one goal in mind; kill your intended target. You have four to choose from here: Saint Cavol, a large, sprawling level; and three smaller levels that take place in comparatively confined locations.
Every level has differing scopes and ways to approach your goal. Some levels allow you to trade items with civilians in order to gain keys to different areas. Some levels let you climb to dizzying heights in order to scope out your surroundings and figure out where to go next. Some levels just thrust you into cramped, dark hallways, demanding that you slither through guard patrols like an unseen snake. You’re not beholden to play stealthily if you don’t want to, though. You’re more than free to kill just about everyone in every level, if you really want to. But there are a few reasons to reconsider this.
For one thing, every level has three criteria to meet in order to “master” them, and each criterion has to be met in a single attempt in order to achieve this mastery. Think of it like trying to get the highest score possible in a bullet hell shmup, for instance. These are as follows:
- Grace: You have to complete the level with as few detections and alerts as possible. It isn’t strictly zero — Saint Cavol seemed to give me at least one free detection early on. But it seems to be based more on you taking damage from a foe or directly causing an alarm than them being seen.
- Mercy: You have to complete the level with no innocent civilians killed. Armed guards and your target are free game.
- Prowess: You have to complete the level with no weapons used. Only your tail and stealth takedowns are allowed.
A separate criterion, Domination, can also be achieved, though it’s much more difficult to get, and goes in direct opposition of the more stealth-oriented goals you’ll try to pursue. Instead, you’ll have to find a way to kill every single living being on the map that isn’t you, without perishing yourself. You can take quite a few down stealthily, but sooner or later, you’ll be forced into taking on foes directly.
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Fennel, despite being an otherworldly devil, isn’t all that tough. That’s not to say she isn’t resourceful, however. Her tail is her best friend, allowing you to climb certain surfaces, hug walls, snag items from a safe distance, and stun foes for a potential takedown. In fact, meeting all three criteria in each level often demands that you use Fennel’s tail to its fullest ability. Stealing keys off of key rings, snagging grog bottles off of shelves to trade for other things, retrieving enemy weapons before reinforcements arrive, all these things and more are crucial to your survival.
It ought to be, after all. Your options for combat are practically nonexistent otherwise. You have your tail, you have takedowns, and you have enemy weapons. That’s it.
Takedowns are what you’ll be using to primarily kill your foes. And there’s certainly a lot of effort put into them. The sheer number of animations tied to stealth takedowns is nothing short of impressive, with each and every one taking your angle of approach into consideration, and though some do veer a bit far into suggestive territory, it’s really not all that bad when you compare it to the likes of BloodRayne. My only real complaint for this is that some animations take far longer to fully complete than others. When you’re either racing against time or trying to avoid detection, it can be a little annoying having to take that into consideration.
Thankfully, Fennel’s inventory does give her a bit more utility to work with. You have two dedicated inventory slots for weapons, and a handful of slots for ammunition, throwable items, keys, and other useful things you might pilfer as you sneak around. You can even carry a third weapon around, but you won’t be able to stow it — in fact, you’ll have to stow anything you’re carrying in your hand in order to grab another item.
It was a little obnoxious at first, but over time, I grew to appreciate having to methodically pick up and put away things I was lugging around. It makes each thing I pick up feel more deliberate, instead of just mindlessly hogging resources that I might never actually use. This even includes toolboxes, which are rare, but extremely useful items that can unlock vent covers for you to pry open. It makes fighting a bit more dangerous, too. You only have so many weapons, and you can often only take down one or two foes with a single weapon before its rendered useless.
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Replayability primarily comes from the game’s surprisingly extensive customization options for Fennel’s appearance. By achieving each of the previously mentioned criteria for mastery, you’ll gain tokens tied to each one that can be exchanged for different hats, jackets, shawls, and other garments for Fennel. Are they useful beyond just changing her appearance? Not really. But it’s fun to accessorize sometimes. The more expensive a piece of clothing is, the more revealing it tends to be, with one item in particular demanding 66 Domination tokens to be unlocked. That’s not a typo, either. They’re really expecting you to kill every enemy on a map 66 times in order to unlock it.
Does it get to be repetitive? A bit, admittedly. Long-term progression rewards aren’t really available outside of expanding your wardrobe, and by the third or fourth time you replay a level, you’re bound to have searched every nook and cranny for secrets and items several times over. But if you’re really desperate to see Fennel in modern streetwear, you’ll just have to make do.
I do have some other small issues with Brush Burial: Gutter World too. It was admittedly difficult to gauge how and if I’d be detected by others when I’m out in the open, with some areas seemingly allowing me to get away with some pretty bold maneuvers without much effort, and others being much stricter in comparison. Stronghold was the biggest example of this, with its numerous enemy sight lines confusing me more often than not. The hitbox for some items can occasionally be difficult to pinpoint too. In Stronghold, one key that I had knocked off the hip of a civilian was laying precariously on a wooden floor, and while I thought I could snatch it with a quick tail grab, I managed to somehow hit the wooden floor below it and flung myself forward into view of several guards. But these were mild annoyances more than anything else.
Should You Play Brush Burial: Gutter World?
Is Brush Burial: Gutter World the next best thing to Thief? Well, no. But it’s not really trying to be. It’s doing its own thing, one that understands that fun of mastering a map full of enemy patterns, secrets to uncover, and optimal ways of doing things, all without having to bookend it with a gripping narrative and otherwise unrelated fluff. It’s stealth gaming distilled into a form that’s surprisingly addictive, made all the more enjoyable by its esoteric attention to detail and the occasional frustrating moment. There’s something to be appreciated in that.
Would I recommend Brush Burial: Gutter World to everyone? I’d say yes, but only if you know what you’re really getting into. The lack of a traditional narrative may be a turnoff. The same goes for its. . . let’s say “suggestive” features. But for me at least, these things didn’t really get in the way of my overall enjoyment. It was a neat experiment in condensing a fun formula into something that can be digested much more quickly and efficiently, and I’m hoping that Knife Demon Software will continue to iterate upon what worked here in the future.
Brush Burial: Gutter World is currently available on Steam and itch.io.
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