There is nothing inherently awful in a game being obscenely long, in fact it can be quite pleasurable to get to know a digital world so intimately. The issue is that I am an “adult” who has to “work” to pay my “bills” and “taxes,” so I don’t always have time for such things. How some of you manage to fit in multiple playthroughs of Persona games will always be an enigma to me. But, as I sit here in my despair, along comes 34EVERLAST, a game designed to be beaten in “as little as 10 minutes,” expressly designed for “busy working adults.”
34EVERLAST, according to its Steam page description, is an action puzzle game about the world ending, which I’m going to be incredibly real with you all for the moment, sounds like a very heavy topic for a game where you can beat it in 10 minutes. However! The way you apparently survive this is by ending the “‘worlds that refuse to die’ that are parallel to this world.” Not any lighter or smaller a concept, potentially compelling though.
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Gameplay works twofold. In the first instance, it’s a 3D action game, looking a little bit PlatinumGamesy in nature. You run, fall, and fight through various worlds on the brink of collapse, with what looks like some visual novel stroke manga elements mixed in for the story. There are also some puzzle elements, though how these manifest isn’t quite as clear.
As condensed as it is, conceptually I quite like some of the design choices it claims to make. The Steam page says that if you make it rain in one world, a desert in another might turn into a forest. You can die in boss fights on purpose too, to potentially “gain an advantage against another.” A smally, flashy package, yet one that, if successful, may have a good bit of substance to it.
While I am intrigued by the concept, it does also raise a bigger, perhaps more personally existential question about life. What are the reasons that we have so little time for hobbies we so greatly enjoy? I could probably name a few, but that’d be going into feature territory. I somewhat hope 34EVERLAST takes such a question into consideration in its story, rather than the 10 minute thing just being a bit of a gimmick.
There’s no exact release date for 34EVERLAST just yet, but it was confirmed by publisher Playism that it’s due out sometime in 2026. You can wishlist it on Steam now.
