There I was, casually looking at WTMG’s email inbox, when I receive a message that starts off with the following sentence: “new game by the creator of GoldenEye and TimeSplitters“. Boy, what a way to catch my attention. PQube was announcing a game by the new studio founded by David Doak and Stephen Ellis, who worked on the aforementioned games, as well as other title like Perfect Dark, Haze and Second Sight. What was my first thought? “Oh boy, new shooter incoming”. I won’t say that the announcement of a very small indie game by the duo felt like false advertisement, because the idea itself is actually very interesting, as you’ll see below, but man, did I feel like a dumb fish falling for a hook.

Regardless of that, the people behind some of the most beloved shooters of all time are back with Beyond Words… the closest thing to “the next Balatro” I’ve seen so far. Yep, I’m dead serious.

You can only put letters in one direction per turn, but you can score multiple words at once if you’re clever enough.

Look, I don’t like to summarise games as “think of the gameplay of X, with elements of Y”, but when it comes to Beyond Words, it’s nearly impossible. The game is literally Scrabble and Balatro mixed together. Your objective is to reach a certain points threshold by assembling words akin in the same vein as Scrabble. The score multipliers, power-ups, boosters, challenging environments, and roguelike elements, however, all stem from Balatro. Just remove Solitaire, and add Scrabble to the mix. I am pretty sure this is the most self-explanatory way to describe it.

And let me be clear, this is not a bad thing. Beyond Words might be a “Balatro-like”, but it knows how to use that game’s addictive gameplay loop to reinvent this micro niche in a fun and equally addictive way. It’s easy to pick up and play (we all know Scrabble, and we all know how words work), and downright challenging to master. Once you learn how to chain words together with your powerups and boosters, you will feel like the god of English. This is the kind of game that lives and dies by the quality of its gameplay, as you can’t expect much from its presentation – it’s just goddamn Scrabble. But there are slight issues with it.

Since when isn’t fart a word, MindFuel Games?

I wouldn’t say that there are control-issues, even if I think the touchscreen mechanics could have been a bit better implemented. My issue that hinders Beyond Words from being as addictive as Balatro (yep, I’m going there) is its insanely demanding scoring threshold. The scalability of each new score is so high, with each new round having such a steep hike in the necessary amount of points you need to achieve in so few moves, that things stop becoming challenging after a while. They become a frustrating matter of luck.

Now, I get it: luck is part of what makes a roguelike entertaining. RNG can either be your friend or your worst enemy. But you don’t earn enough cash in between rounds to amass a combo-worthy arsenal of powerups that easily, and that is also dependant of whatever powerup the shop offers during a certain round. For instance, the first round in each level always has you scoring at least 500 points to proceed. On the second round, the threshold triples. On the third round, which is already a boss run with something hindering you, it more than triples. You get the point.

I don’t think this is a truly disastrous issue, nor something that might be impossible to fix. Balatro suffered from a few balancing issues at first, and its developer made sure to patch it up with a few balancing tweaks over the following months. This is totally doable in Beyond Words‘ case. I already like the fact that each level is comprised of different base rulesets and spaces, taking advantage of how Scrabble works. I also really like the multiple paths you can take, with some levels just being straightforward gauntlets, with others having some pre-existing condition or puzzle for you to solve. For real, it’s just a matter of tweaking how demanding the damn thing can be in its first few levels.

Blue tiles add up to your total multiplier. Purple ones, uh, “multiply your multiplier”.

Beyond Words nails its premise and its mixture of gameplay styles. Literally labelling it “Balatro meets Scrabble” is the best praise it can receive; it has the potential to become something as addictive as its sources of inspiration. All it really needs to do, in order to truly shine in the future, is tweak some of its overly demanding scoring thresholds, which can be a bit frustrating at times, making you rely more on luck than your actual vocabulary skills. Nevertheless, this one is a delightful breath of fresh air. And another reason for me to worry about my decline of productivity over the next few months.

Beyond Words is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Switch.

A copy of Beyond Words was provided by the publisher.