Image: Strange Scaffold

Strange Scaffold and their head dude Xalavier Nelson Jr are some of the most prolific, active indies around today. A couple years back, I had the chance to review El Paso, Elsewhere, their epic supernatural breakup ballad and tribute to Max Payne's bullet-time combat, and it was a grand old time. A fusion of twitchy boomer shooter mechanics and precision slow-mo shooting. Today, we've got a demo for the sequel, just in time for both Halloween and the Next Fest.

For those who did play the first one, the good news is that James Savage, paranormal detective and one-time beau of the Queen of the Vampires, has kicked his 300-bottles-a-day painkiller habit. Good on him. We're proud. Unfortunately he's traded it for a potentially worse dependency: Blood. For REASONS (play the first game, please), he's now a vampire, and can only heal by drinking rare bottles of blood, or by spending his limited pool of stakes to drain enemies.

It makes combat a slightly more aggressive affair. Hang back and the new gun-using enemies (vampire mobsters and minigun-wielding golems) will slowly chip away at you, meaning that when you DO need to heal, the process of rushing in to stake an enemy will be all the more dangerous. The demo also throws you in at the deep end, with a big pool of guns from the first game, and most of the enemies immediately returning and hurling fireballs (or themselves) at you. Definitely a demo made with fans of the original in mind, although there's some rough edges, like wonky animations (James sometimes just holds one gun weird when dual-wielding), but nothing that shouldn't be fixed by launch.

James' introspective narration and commentary remains a joy, both written and performed by Xalavier. A little less depressed than in the first game (he's getting over the messiest breakup in history), and I'm intrigued to see where the story is heading now. One thing this demo really lacks is the amazing vocal-heavy soundtrack of the original game. Not because it won't be in the full version, but just because the music is still in the works. Thankfully, Strange Scaffold composer RJ Lake has shared one track from the El Paso, Elsewhere 2's upcoming album, along with a full music video to go with it.

Hell yeah. Good to know the game is on the right track.

You can snag the El Paso, Elsewhere 2 demo on the game's Steam page now, but I would recommend anyone start with the original game, which is currently 50% off.