THRESHOLD's Difficulty System Is Wonderfully Based on Reality

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I played a ton of amazing, smaller-scale, creepy games last year, and there are two that come to my mind. THRESHOLD is one of them. It's quite creepy, runs well on the Steam Deck, and has an extreme ending that, as soon as I made the connection, I was impressed by the message being told. One of the confusing aspects at the beginning is actually the difficulty system, which instead of choosing a normal or hard difficulty, you choose a country. Yesterday, the solo developer of the game, Julien Eveillé, took to Twitter/X to explain the mechanics behind the difficulty system, and it may be one of my favorites in any video game I have played.

Before I discuss it more, this does spoil the game, so if you are in the middle of playing or plan to play, or just trying to figure out the message THRESHOLD is trying to convey, DO NOT read further.

So one last time...SPOLIERS AHEAD.

Now, there are two parameters that gauge how the game changes based on the country you choose, and I will go into the less spoiler-y one first. THRESHOLD takes place high up on a mountain, and because of that, your oxygen is low. Throughout the game, you will have to bite into glass canisters filled with oxygen to replenish. However, how often you have to replenish changes depends on the country you choose. The way this is decided is actually by whatever the highest mountain is for that country in real life.

Julien researched what the highest mountain is in each country, and the higher the mountain, the faster your oxygen will run out. For example, China's highest mountain is Mount Everest, which clocks in at 29,029 feet high, and in the game, your oxygen will run out at a little over a minute. In contrast, the highest mountain in the UK is Ben Nevis, which clocks in at 4,406 feet high, and in-game, your oxygen will run out around every 3 minutes. So, the countries you choose with higher mountains will deplete your oxygen faster.

The second aspect of the game deals directly with the ending of the game, so again, this is another warning that there are SPOILERS AHEAD.

The other aspect that changes depending on the country you choose is actually the animals. Julien went to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations website and found information about how many animals are killed in each country every day. He used this information to influence how many dead animal bodies rain down on you at the end of the game. The exact number is based on how long your playthrough is and how many animals were killed in that country in that same timeframe. So, if your playthrough is four hours, you will get four hours worth of animals dropped on you based on how many animals a country kills in four hours in real life.

This also influences how often the train slows down, requiring you to speed it up more consistently. The idea is that in countries where there are more animals being killed, there is more security and friction at the border, so you have to compensate by speeding the trains up more.

I found both of these features extremely interesting. Not only does your choice of country really matter in how you interact with the game, but it's all based on real information that is publicly accessible. This is one of the coolest ways to influence the difficulty of your game, and I am tempted to go back into the game and see the differences for myself. Luckily, it is playable on the Steam Deck, so I am ready to tuck myself into bed and slow down some trains.

THRESHOLD is available on Steam for $9.99 and is rated Steam Deck Playable due to needing a community controller configuration and needing to manually bring up the virtual keyboard.

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