PLATFORM: PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: 3RD NOVEMBER

After a cataclysmic extinction-level event threatens to destroy the world, the only hope for mankind lies inside the Entropy Centre, a mysterious facility that houses an untold power within its core. Playing out in a similar way to games like Portal and The Turing Test, The Entropy Centre is a first-person 3D puzzler that drops you into a large facility and asks you to make your way through a series of interconnected rooms by completing a variety of increasingly complex puzzles.

All games of this kind need a gimmick, and TEC’s is based around time manipulation. Using a talking gun with an adorable LED face, you have the ability to rewind the position of various objects in the environment – or, as the game describes it, the gun is able to “scan an object’s spacetime chronology and move it through the past”. The trick, as the game tells you, is to think backwards – move a block onto a few different switches to open a series of doors in the reverse order, then rewind the block’s position as you move through the doors, opening one after another until you reach the exit. It’s difficult to explain but easy enough to get the hang of in the early going, although the steps necessary to escape each room become more intricate as you go along. When additional hazards start coming into play, things quickly become rather tricky indeed…

The Entropy Centre is very much “Portal with a time-rewinding mechanic”, but adding your own spin to an established formula can certainly sometimes be a recipe for success. Some slightly underwhelming voice acting aside, this is a fine addition to the rather short list of sci-fi puzzlers.