Kholat - Sean Bean narrates a horror game about the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Done with Kholat (3.1hrs, 11/20 achievements). Hard to recommend for full price, it looks and sounds gorgeous but the gameplay is very thin, go to coordinates, collect a note, repeat. Some kind of ghosts are roaming around in certain areas and when they catch you unaware it's a nice scare but overall they're easy to avoid. Story and narration (by Sean Bean) are also only so-so, maybe they should've toned down the supernatural stuff and integrated real survival elements. So in the end it doesn't come together 100% but the atmosphere pulled me through. 6.5/10

spindoc said:
How large are the map areas? i initially thought this was some corridor walking simulator experience.
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Act 1 and 3 are linear and short, the main game is in Act 2 and the area feels rather large, took me about 3hrs to go to every important spot but I didn't explore everything and missed a bunch of collectibles (I wish you could run a little longer before getting exhausted or walk faster, would make exploring more fun, at least there's a fast travel system).
 
Does this mean that this is the first game where a narrator dies at around 75% through the game?
This is my second "Sean Bean dies everywhere" joke this week. I should be cautious.
 
The twist is that
there are no aliens, everyone died of dehydration and paradoxical undress (which is what actually happened). You're playing the game through the eyes of someone hallucinating as they die.

I have no idea but that would be pretty awesome.
 
derExperte said:
Done with Kholat (3.1hrs, 11/20 achievements). Hard to recommend for full price, it looks and sounds gorgeous but the gameplay is very thin, go to coordinates, collect a note, repeat. Some kind of ghosts are roaming around in certain areas and when they catch you unaware it's a nice scare but overall they're easy to avoid. Story and narration (by Sean Bean) are also only so-so, maybe they should've toned down the supernatural stuff and integrated real survival elements. So in the end it doesn't come together 100% but the atmosphere pulled me through. 6.5/10



Act 1 and 3 are linear and short, the main game is in Act 2 and the area feels rather large, took me about 3hrs to go to every important spot but I didn't explore everything and missed a bunch of collectibles (I wish you could run a little longer before getting exhausted or walk faster, would make exploring more fun, at least there's a fast travel system).
Click to expand...

I am going to disagree with you a little here. At £15 this is a good price for a game like this. It is a one and done type affair, but for me, the time I am spending with it had been all about being drawn in.

Having just the map and compass to guide you adds to a sense of bleakness that many other games fail to achieve. So far it doesn't feel like there can be a positive outcome for my character, so I am therefore taking him down a path that will ultimately end up with his demise.

If anything it reminds me of the end of The Mist, where seemingly all hope is lost and all that remains is death, sweet peaceful death.

There are moments where panic will set in, where you are completely unsure if you are going in the right direction, wondering if the safest option is to head back to a potential safe place, or to push on further in the hope you are doing the right thing.

The overall lack of action for me are a good thing as it takes it away from being a pure game and also a pure walking simulator. You are trying to piece together what happened so there is a point to what you are doing, I am not sure how much more they could have done or what else they could have added.

It's not perfect, that's for sure, but as an experience, so far it is one that will stay with me for a long time and puts the likes of Outlast to absolute shame.
 
Jim Sterling released a video, he really likes the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jfTVM9PWXs

And Steam trading cards are up.

bradigor said:
I am going to disagree with you a little here. At £15 this is a good price for a game like this. It is a one and done type affair, but for me, the time I am spending with it had been all about being drawn in.
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Maybe I'm overcompensating because I got the key for free so it's hard to say how I would've felt after paying full price. It's just that at end I wanted a little more, Ethan Carter wasn't much longer but it had a few puzzles for example. Better enemy ai would've helped a lot too, make them actually chase you for a while or place them so you need to distract them. Small things like that. Anyway, I'm looking forward to what they'll do next and it bears repeating that Kholat looks and sounds fantastic. those snow effects alone....
 
How come I hadn't heard of this? Mary Elizabeth McGlynn is featured one the OST, which means I must play this.
 
Doesn't seem like many people played this at launch, given 3/4 of the posts in the thread are Sean Bean jokes, haha.

Has anyone else played it in the year and a half since the last post? I just finished it and was really surprised how atmospheric it was. The world design is incredible, with just the right amount of surreal, as is the sound design and the OST.

The ending was a let-down, and the gameplay being Slender style 'grab all the notes' definitely held it back a bit, but the actual voice acting and writing was (on the whole) fantastic (Sean Bean and all the others).

If you enjoy wandering around cool, creepy environments looking for things feeling lost and vulnerable, check this out!
 
My god, I'm playing the Xbox One edition and the conversion is awful! :(

Low frame rate and a very heavy screen tearing.

It is even worse than the Layers of Fear port. :(

Hoping for a patch.
 
Castef said:
My god, I'm playing the Xbox One edition and the conversion is awful! :(

Low frame rate and a very heavy screen tearing.

It is even worse than the Layers of Fear port. :(

Hoping for a patch.
Click to expand...
I had no idea a console version was even in the works.
 
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