When Was the Game InnerLiftHunt Released
Let’s get the core question answered up front: when was the game innerlifthunt released? It hit digital storefronts on April 18, 2023, after several months of closed beta testing in early 2023. The launch was lowkey, without a AAA marketing machine, but word of mouth carried it fast in tightknit gaming circles. Reddit threads lit up. Streamers picked it up. And soon enough, InnerLiftHunt started carving out a serious niche.
What’s the Game About?
InnerLiftHunt is a psychological horroradventure set in a labyrinthine fortress elevator system. Sounds niche, but here’s why it’s compelling: it’s an atmospheric mind game. Think Soma mixed with the puzzle tension of The Witness, wrapped in the tension of Amnesia.
The player takes the role of a nameless operative navigating a collapsing experimental facility powered by vertical lifts. The elevator system isn’t just transportation—it’s the setting, puzzle board, and sometimes even the villain. You’re not just pushing buttons; you’re deciphering patterns to stay alive.
Who Made It?
This isn’t a megacorp title. InnerLiftHunt comes from Torsar Interactive, a small team based in the Netherlands. The core trio—design lead Amira Vos, programmer Jens Rutten, and audio artist Eli Tan—crafted InnerLiftHunt during latenight passion project hours while holding day jobs. It started as a game jam concept and snowballed into a commercial product.
They leaned into smart design rather than highbudget production. What it lacks in polish, it makes up for in originality and intensity.
Gameplay Breakdown
You might expect FPS combat or inventory juggling. Not here. InnerLiftHunt plays slow and sharp. You interact with the world mostly through terminals, codes, mapping lifts, and decoding cryptic logs. Every floor of the fortress has a different persona—dark secret labs, overgrown biotech gardens, floors stuck in some timewarped loop.
What should be a simple ride becomes a game of survival logic. Lift routes overlap like a Rubik’s Cube. Some lifts move in reverse logic—down means up, right means wrong. Add in threats that “infect” entire elevator systems, and you’ve got a game that demands both puzzle skills and nerves of steel.
Visuals and Sound
You won’t find ray tracing here. Graphics are functional—lowfi textures, deliberately bleak color palettes—but they serve the mood. Torsar Interactive doubled down on tension through sound. Mechanical creaks echo with malicious intent. The soundtrack rarely intrudes but rises just when your confidence dips. You never know if that hum in the shaft is harmless, or something hunting.
Player Reception
Despite the lowprofile debut, the game built traction fast. On Steam, it sports a “Very Positive” rating. What players appreciate is the respect it gives your time and brain. No handholding. No XP meters. A few players complained it’s “too nonlinear,” but that seems like a badge of honor in a landscape full of corridor simulators.
Twitch and YouTube sped up its momentum. Walkthrough channels dived deep—some trying to map every floor layout, others exposing easter eggs left purposefully for explorationobsessed players.
Why It Works
It’s rare for an indie game to build persistent tension without cheap scares. InnerLiftHunt does it by forcing you to listen, think, and react. Every sound might matter. Every missed elevator button might trap you on a level you can’t return from. It rewards patience, punishes assumptions.
Also, it doesn’t overstay. The full experience clocks in at 8–10 hours. Streamlined, no fluff, no padded fetchquests. You enter the lift network a novice. You leave it—if you can—wiser and slightly scarred.
The Future of the Franchise
Torsar’s already hinted at updates. A content patch in late 2023 added three alternate ending paths, each subtle and tied to choices on specific floors. In early 2024, they committed to a story expansion dubbed Echo Floors—adding six new zones and more AI behavior variance.
Modding support is on the roadmap too. That’s huge. A puzzler like this, with a modular hub system (aka elevators), is tailormade for community expansions.
Final Thoughts
So, circling back: when was the game innerlifthunt released? April 18, 2023. And it hasn’t left the minds of thrillseeking gamers since. It’s not for everyone—no fasttwitch action, no sandbox chaos. But if you’ve got patience and enjoy when games mess with your mind in deliberate, rewarding ways, InnerLiftHunt earns its praise.
Indie gaming thrives not just on innovation, but on tension, memory, and obsessive design. InnerLiftHunt nails all three—through an elevator shaft, no less.