EXCLUSIVE - Camel 101 on Beneath’s focused scope, horror influences, and narrative design
Emergency bowel evacuation.
By Jonathan Garrett
06/04/26
Interview with Ricardo Cesteiro (Co-Founder, Camel 101)
Beneath is exactly the kind of laser focused genre title that proudly embraces its Lovecraftian influences while delivering consistent, bombastic action. It’s hardly a surprise that the team behind Those Who Remain have continued to explore unsettling locales, while empowering players with a more traditional shooter move set to fight back the nasties.
It evokes classic titles like F.E.A.R, which is always going to be a positive comparison. We’re extremely lucky to have been able to pick the brain of Richard Cesteiro to discuss the conceptual approach and design of their latest effort. Beneath is available on PC, Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.
Beneath is pitched as evoking classic single player experiences that embrace a more focused runtime. Was it tricky to exercise restraint and avoid feature bloat?
I would say yes and no. On one hand, we have a ton of ideas that we would love to implement, and sometimes one idea brings along another fresh idea, but we are also a small team, so we need to be mindful of our resources and be realistic about what we can do. So we ended up trimming the scope and keeping the features that we felt that made more sense and added the most fun to the game.
The Lovecraftian horror influences are apparent in both the tone and graphical style. What were the aspects of the genre that really captured your imagination?
We’re huge fans of HP Lovecraft, and we’ve always wanted to do something inspired by his works.
I would say that what hooked me most was the desperation of the cosmic horror, and the concept of the human mind cracking under the weight of ancient powerful forces that are all around us.
That combined with the allure of the deep ocean and all the mysteries below, is the perfect setting for a horror story.
Methinks they’re not friendly.
There is a clear narrative focus within your prior titles, especially Those Who Remain and Syndrome. When designing Beneath, did you craft the story first, or lead with the gameplay mechanics?
We usually have a basic rundown of the story when we start creating the gameplay mechanics, and both things end up advancing together during development. Beneath was no different; when we started working on the gameplay mechanics, we had a draft of the story, meaning that we knew how it started and how it would end, but not what would happen in the middle.
As we designed the mechanics, environments and levels, we also finalized the story. It’s a fluid process, as some things are bound to change, both narratively and in terms of gameplay mechanics.
You’ve dipped a toe in other media with the Those Who Remain - Light’s Out comic. Any plans for additional tie-ins with Beneath?
There’s actually an easter-egg in Beneath that references the events of Those Who Remain. The events of both games aren’t connected, but they’re taking place in the same universe. We love to play with the idea of a world where all these weird events are taking place and yes, maybe do some tie-ins in the future.
Are the enemies in Beneath rejected experiments created by the Vidiians from Star Trek: Voyager?
I’m quite sure they’re not. In fact, I would go so far as suggesting that maybe the Vidiians are failed experiments created by something from Beneath!
A huge thank you to Ricardo Cesteiro and the team at Camel 101.
Beneath is available now for PC, Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. You can see it on Steam right here.
My wife would be hard brexit on this simply because of the tentacles.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
