The new DLC for *Brotato* is here! This time, it feels like a wild monster movie.

When that little potato, always tumbling through gunfire, is suddenly thrown into a prehistoric jungle, what this DLC establishes first is not really a gameplay gimmick, but a kind of scene orchestration that feels almost like a movie poster: dense forest, giant beasts, heavily metallic mecha dinosaurs, and mutated creatures ready to leap out from the shadows at any moment. At tonight’s 3i Initiative indie game showcase, Brotato unveiled the trailer for its new DLC, Abyssal Terrors, and while the information revealed wasn’t especially extensive, its identity was already strikingly clear. For a game that is fundamentally a top-down arena shooter roguelite, new maps and new enemies are never just “reskins” — they often determine the emotional tone of an entire run.

From what is currently known, Abyssal Terrors will introduce a brand-new prehistoric jungle map, while natives, mecha dinosaurs, and mutated dinosaurs form the most eye-catching cast of this expansion pack. The combination feels a bit like taking the wildness of Jurassic Park, the oppressive jungle atmosphere of King Kong, and the exaggerated fun of B-movie monster films, then stuffing them all into Brotato’s already delightfully chaotic combat system. What makes it especially valuable is that it does not stray from the absurd core of the base game: you still play as a potato, still wield up to six weapons at once, and still struggle to survive waves of enemies until reinforcements arrive — only this time, the things chasing you clearly have far more “screen presence.”

On the narrative level, Brotato has never relied on long passages of text or character dialogue to shine. It is more like an ultra-short action film, compressing character setup, the absurdity of its world, and the pressure of survival into combat rounds that last only a few minutes each. Through stats, items, and weapon combinations, players gradually create their own builds, and this process of “writing the character while fighting” feels a lot like rewriting the script on set. From another angle, what makes Abyssal Terrors most worth anticipating is not just the new content itself, but whether these new enemies and new environments can force out fresh build logic, prompting veteran players to rethink pacing, positioning, and trade-offs.

But the deeper issue is that for a DLC like this to be truly memorable, it cannot rely solely on having a “cool theme.” What stands out most in the trailer is, of course, the visual contrast of the prehistoric jungle and the instantly attention-grabbing design of mecha dinosaurs. But if, in the end, it merely makes the enemies look more lively without adding new layers to how situations evolve or how builds are expressed, then it will be like a monster movie whose trailer far outshines the film itself — after the excitement fades, only a trace of regret remains. Fortunately, Brotato’s foundation is solid enough. It has always been good at using simple rules to generate complex situations, so this expansion is still worth viewing with cautious optimism.

If you already enjoy Brotato’s high-density, short-round, build-heavy combat loop, then Abyssal Terrors is very likely a content expansion worth following right away. If your interest in the game has been only moderate so far, and you are mainly drawn in by keywords like “dinosaurs,” “jungle,” and “mecha,” then it would be better to wait and see how the gameplay looks before deciding whether to pick it up. In terms of broader trends, indie games in recent years have become increasingly adept at using DLC to extend the atmosphere and identity of their worlds, rather than simply piling on stats and stages. At the very least, Brotato is heading in the right direction this time: it is trying to turn a familiar survival battle into a film of a completely different style. As for whether this “monster movie” can sustain itself through the full feature, we will have to wait until it actually launches to find out.