Filament is a puzzler about tying knots in space Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Filament is a puzzler about tying knots in space Strings attached. Feature by Christian Donlan Features Editor Updated on 11 Feb 2020 13 comments Filament is a game about helping people. And it's a real nest-of-tables affair, stacked several levels deep. You wake up on a spaceship suspended, gorgeously, above the slowly turning surface of an alien planet. There's a voice in your head that seems to be telling you that there's someone else stuck on the ship too, and you should work to free them. And to do that? To do that you'll need help yourself. Filament Developer: Beard Envy Limited Publisher: Kasedo Games Availability: Coming to PC March 2020, Switch in Summer This is where the filament comes into Filament. When you bobble around the ship and interact with a bit of broken technology, you get the chance to un-break it via a proxy. What this means is that every now and then you find yourself playing a neat little puzzle game in which a robot attached to an endlessly unspooling cord has to power-up a bunch of nodes by touching them all with the cord. It's deeply tangible stuff. Imagine you've got a table with a few nails sticking out of it, and you've got a piece of string tied to one of the nails. Can you loop the string around all the nails without crossing over yourself? That's Filament. Of course, you need to get the cord around all the nodes and then still be able to make it to the exit that opens up once all the nodes are activated. All of this without crossing your own path! Filament's a wonderful puzzler, and it's also wonderfully maddening - because you can get the exit door open and then realise that you've trapped yourself in anyway. And then Filament piles on the complications: nodes that open and shut helpful little gateways, nodes that have to be activated in a certain sequence. Nodes that break the pattern. Colours. Moving nodes! All of this stuff is dropped in beautifully: you learn how something works in one puzzle, and then the next puzzle asks you to rethink everything you thought you just learned. This interplay of the puzzles and the overworld, which itself promises to grow ever more puzzle-like, can't help but put me in mind of The Witness. Yet Filament, from the little I've played, has its own character and its own sense of pace and identity. I can't wait for this to come out properly and drive me to that kind of happy fury that only a great puzzle game can create. One to keep an eye on, this. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. 12 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 34 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 59 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store