In Rain World, it starts with hunger. Not the gnawing kind you feel after skipping a meal — something smaller, sharper. The kind that reminds you you’re not supposed to survive here. You’re a slugcat, a slip of fur and bone dropped into a world that’s already moved on without you.
The concrete skeleton of the old world stretches above, rusted beams and crumbling pipes tangled in vines that forgot how to bloom. Nothing here was made for you. The platforms groan under your weight. Chains sway even when there’s no wind. Somewhere in the distance, something moves — slow, deliberate. You don’t need to see it to know you’re already being hunted.
Rain World doesn’t tell you where to go. It doesn’t care. The only thing it promises is the rain — and it keeps that promise. You learn fast that the sky here doesn’t weep. It crushes. The downpour arrives like a wall, filling every tunnel, sweeping away anything too slow to run. You count cycles by how many times you outrun it. Some days, that number is one.
You need to eat. The batflies are quick, little black wings flickering against the grey. You catch one because you’re lucky, not skilled — and even then, you barely taste it. But it’s enough. Enough to hibernate. Enough to survive one more flood.
Every moment between rains is borrowed time. Lizards stalk the dark corners, scales shimmering in the half-light, their mouths gaping wide with teeth too large for something that hunts by creeping. You spot them before they strike — sometimes. Other times, you’re a blur of white fur, scrambling up a pole just fast enough to hear the snap of jaws below.
The world doesn’t pause for you. Scavengers pick through the ruins, hoarding what little’s left — spears, trinkets, things you don’t understand. Vultures drift overhead, their long talons dangling like cruel promises. Everything alive is desperate. Everything dead is proof you weren’t fast enough.
And yet… there’s beauty. The way the green vines climb higher each cycle, how the light filters through the grime just right — as if the world forgot itself for a second. You find yourself stopping, listening to the distant hum of something ancient still running, long after anyone remembered why.
Rain World is not about winning. It’s not about conquering the map or killing the biggest thing in the room. It’s about lasting one more cycle. Finding a pipe to crawl through. A patch of dry ground to hibernate. A moment — brief, fragile — where you feel like you belong, even if the world says otherwise.
You survive. Then you survive again. Not because you’re the strongest. But because sometimes, that’s enough.
Rain World is available on Steam.
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