It was only a few hours into Going Under that the thought "okay, I get it now" crossed my mind. It wasn't the moment I gave up on the game, but it was the moment I understood that I had seen every trick it had to offer. Going Under makes its mechanical and thematic intentions clear right away and sticks to them until the very end. What you see in the first hour is largely what you'll get for the remainder.

For a good while, that's not a bad thing either. I'm an easy lay for pointed satire on startup culture, complete with sharp pokes at both office culture, "self-made entrepreneurs", as well as the complacency and they foster in their target audience - as well as their contempt for their employees and customers alike. It's very well sketched to the point that it becomes genuinely frustrating in how authentic it feels. Subtext is for cowards, after all, and this is not a game made by cowards, and I appreciate its sharpness.

However, after a while I—well—got it. The game keeps treading the same ground over and over, with very little substance added over time. Appropriately, this is also the case with the gameplay, which is a goofier take on the standard roguelike dungeon crawler formula, but with more office supplies and wacky toys as lethal weaponry. It remains charming for a decent amount of time, but as I stood at the gates of the final dungeon, I didn't have it in me to carry on going through with the same button mashing that the previous 8 hours had offered.

I don't regret a minute I spent with Going Under, but I also don't really desire to experience any more. Perhaps it's appropriate for a game about the hollow nature of corporate culture to itself devolve into a repetitive grind that doesn't really fulfil its lofty promises. Either way, as we're all dancing to the bittersweet tunes accompanying the beginning of the end of late day capitalism, there are certainly worse distractions to be had.