Gibbon: Beyond the Trees review – Swing on by

Is there anything like video games for creating a powerful sense of wish fulfilment? At the pinnacle you’re harnessing incredible powers and saving worlds, but on a more grounded level there’s the chance to simply occupy another being’s skin and virtually “live” their experience.

So, if you’ve ever wondered what it must feel like to swing through treetops with the speed and grace of a monkey, there’s now single-player Gibbon: Beyond the Trees to bring that particular fantasy to exhilarating, playable reality on various gaming platforms.

From Austrian developers Broken Rules, the same indie studio behind the celebrated Old Man’s Journey, Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is a colourful ecological adventure that lets players experience free-flowing movement based on brachiation (you learn something new every day), the long-armed swinging action that helps gibbons travel from branch to branch.

In Gibbon: Beyond the Trees, you swing, slide, somersault and even launch yourself like a trapeze artist from the hands of your gibbon kin, across vibrant 2D hand-painted environments. These backdrops range from equatorial forests peppered with durian trees, to multi-storeyed Southeast Asian cities teeming with life and tangled with overhead wires.

Often enough you don’t even fully appreciate these settings because you’re concentrating on their traversal. Successfully timing your swings, and the switch between movement options, generates momentum and lift you need to successfully cross raging rivers, multi-lane freeways and, most upsetting, huge swathes of deforested, deliberately burnt jungle. Gibbon: Beyond the Trees features spectacular breath-holding leaps into the abyss – frequently combined with an ululating Tarzan call – that put Assassin’s Creed to shame.

Finding your acrobatic “flow” in Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is incredibly satisfying. Released first for mobile-centric subscription service Apple Arcade, the game features a simple hold, release and flick tactility. While the PC demo has since been removed from the game’s Steam page after NextFest, the controls are just as stripped down and pleasing with keyboard or controller (controller is slightly more comfortable out of the two), so it’s hard to say which is the most enjoyable platform to play on.

Regardless of what you choose, Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is an immersive experience, with the subtle sound design reflecting whatever surface you’re interacting with. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the leaves of tree canopies rustle as you pass through, and the “twang” of corrugated iron roofs as you bound across them.

Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is more than just a primate parkour game, for the record. It may be cute, chilled, and accessible even for young players, but it has a strong embedded message about the environmental and ecological destruction caused by humans. Gibbons are one of the most endangered species on the planet, and Broken Rules are using the lesser primates’ dilemma to explore a broader global issue. Informed by experts, the game includes a resource list for players who want to learn more and make a difference.

Of course, there will also be players who approach a game like Gibbon: Beyond the Trees with the question, “Will I get enough value out of this game?” If you’re concerned that Gibbon will be too short an experience for you, the developers have a clever solution. The game contains two modes.

First up is a ten-chapter story mode, centred on a trio of threatened gibbons, Pink, Yellow and Lilac. Barring a punishing hunter level, which you will need to replay from scratch every time you fail, you should be able to finish Gibbon’s story mode in an hour. Once you’ve completed the moving narrative, you unlock a lengthy piece of epilogue content called Liberation. This mode sees your gibbon race through a procedurally generated jungle to rescue ten other at-risk species from cages, and it should keep you occupied for ages. You can also replay the main storyline, or cherry pick your favourite chapter from the full plotline.

The only other thing to say about Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is that it’s a difficult game to score as a reviewer because the experience is really what you, the player, make of it. Stick to swinging only, and the gameplay is rather one-note. However, string together combos of swinging, sliding, backflips and death-defying launches and you will have a thrilling time – paired with a wholesome and poignant tale that doesn’t blunt its edge.

Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is playable now with Apple Arcade on iOS devices. The game is also coming “in early 2022” to PC, Mac and Nintendo Switch.