Being trapped underground with six strangers is already a situation nobody wants to experience. We’ve been stuck in an elevator for almost an hour and we know how quickly things can take a wrong turn. Advent: Dawn makes a group of people slowly begin questioning each other, paving the road for an engaging psychological mystery.
After exploring a more complex sci-fi mystery with The VII Enigma in 2022, the studio Spire Games shifts its focus toward something much more intimate.
Following the Threads of the Mystery
Advent: Dawn is a visual novel, which, if you’ve been living under a rock, means that most of the time is spent reading conversations, learning about the characters, and slowly piecing together what happened. Like all novels, this too has a branching structure but, unlike most novels, it handles it in a brave and refreshing way. Instead of following one straightforward path, we constantly jump between different timelines and character routes. One decision might lead us toward one survivor, revealing a small piece of the mystery in the process. Another choice completely changes the direction of the story. The more jumping that we do, the more we see that we’re only scratching the surface.
Each subsequent playthrough encourages experimentation and exploration. We often found ourselves returning to previous decisions, trying different options, and searching for the missing pieces that would connect everything together. Rather than feeling like we were simply reading through a story, it felt like we were slowly solving a puzzle where every character and every conversation held another important clue.
That said, the pacing does struggle at times. Advent: Dawn is a very dialogue-heavy experience, and while the story usually manages to keep our attention, there are moments where it feels like it takes too long to reach the next major revelation. The included puzzles help break up the constant reading, but their quality varies. Some connect nicely with the mystery surrounding the crystals and the cave, while others feel more like obstacles placed between important story moments.
Thankfully, the presentation helps carry the slower sections. The interface remains simple and easy to navigate, while the fully voiced scenes add much-needed emotion to the characters. Even the unvoiced dialogue uses small voice effects and animated reactions, creating a style that works surprisingly well.
Caleb Coles’ music perfectly captures the uncomfortable atmosphere of being trapped underground. As tensions rise and the group begins turning against itself, the soundtrack slowly builds that feeling of uncertainty and paranoia. It never overwhelms the scenes, but it always knows when to make the situation feel more desperate.
The constant jumping between different points in the story can sometimes hurt the momentum. We might become invested in a tense emotional moment with one character, only to suddenly return to the flowchart and leave that scene behind. This is part of the nature of branching visual novels, and it is necessary for the structure Advent: Dawn is aiming for, but it can still be frustrating when the story has us fully invested.
Finding the Truth Beneath the Surface
Advent: Dawn takes a familiar visual novel formula and uses it to create a mystery that rewards patience and curiosity. We rate Advent: Dawn an 8/10. It is a slow-burning mystery that often asked us to pay attention and to question everything. We loved this off-the-rails approach since it made us accept that the full picture will only come together after exploring every possible path. For fans of branching visual novels or for choose-your-own-adventure books, this is exactly the kind of mystery worth getting lost in.
- Developer: Spire Games
- Publisher: Spire Games
- Platforms: PC (Steam), Linux, Mac
- Release Date: July 20, 2026
- Genre: Sci-Fi Mystery Visual Novel / Adventure
Leave a comment