So I bought DreadOut during the recent Halloween sale and decided to play it earlier today.
For those that don't know about it, DreadOut is a survival horror game focusing on Indonesian folklore. For all intents and purposes, it's an Early Access game; the game currently consists of only Act I (though there is a unique prologue demo available), with Act II and a Free Roam mode eventually being released later on. Act II will be free for anyone that's already bought the game, so there's that. But it's important to keep in mind that the game really isn't finished yet. What's already there is mostly good, though. If you liked the era of early to mid 2000's PS2 survival horror games, you'll probably find something to like about DreadOut, if only due to nostalgia.
The gameplay will be familiar to you if you've ever played any of the Fatal Frame games. The silent main character, Linda, uses a smartphone to battle, and sometimes see, different spirits. Most of the game's combat segments are easy, except for one. For the sake of spoilers, I won't go to into too much detail, but until you figure out the trick to beating this specific spirit, you'll get to enjoy the
frustrations joys of stun locking and dying repeatedly. That was probably the worst part of the game for me. Worst part is that the fight becomes trivial once you figure out what to do. Other functions of the phone include acting as a flashlight, which really helps at times, and acting as a means to solve a few puzzles. And by a few, I mean that there are like two puzzles that you really need to use it to progress in the game and the rest are achievement based puzzles. It really helps to explore every inch of the areas you're in, especially in the early portion of the game, because there are multiple collectibles to pick up, ranging from memos to random items that increase your health and stamina.
The game's story feels like it could have been, and still could be, fleshed out more. It's a very bare bones setup that's basically just there to get you to the spooky segments. You meet Linda, her best friend Ira, her other friends, and her teacher, they take a wrong turn, end up by a collapsed bridge, and decide that it's a great idea to explore an abandoned town and school. Like most of the problems with the game, this can be explained by the low budget the developers had to work with, so hopefully Act II ends up being more polished. The back story feels a little underdeveloped as well, but still works. The spirits infesting the town and school were given enough background to keep me interested. A few journals and newspapers strewn around the game world give insight into what happened to the town, and I'm hoping that it's expanded upon in the second half of the game.
DreadOut ends up being two main areas, one of which has both a day time and night time variant. Most people probably won't even realize that the first area, the abandoned town, is actually filled with secrets and collectibles. Most people probably didn't even realize that you could backtrack to the start of the game and encounter a few hostile spirits in the darkness along road through the town, or that collecting some medals could lead to another battle entirely. And that's something that I personally love in games, but I can see people not be aware of this and completely missing it, detracting from the game's already short length. The school also houses multiple secrets that you might miss unless you thoroughly explore it and take pictures of anything that looks interesting.
Like I mentioned earlier, it feels like a PS2 game. It really looks like one, too. Despite having mainly low res textures, there's a lot of detail put into the environment. There are entire areas that you could miss unless you really explore, which are usually filled with miscellaneous objects like posters, and the game surprisingly doesn't reuse too many models. Most of the living character models look decent, other than some of their animations. The spirit models range from looking
(click only if you don't mind enemy spoilers) fucking rad to just
plain silly. That being said, most of them look pretty decent, and there's a greater variety of spirits than I thought there would be.
It also has butts. Lots of butts right in the view of the camera for no reason. It's actually sort of creepy how butt-centric the game is. Three of those links were promo shots from the Steam store, of course.
The game's sound design is mostly good. I'm not really a fan of the voice acting in the game, but I guess it's decent. The background noises and music, however, are probably the strongest parts of the game. You'll often encounter strange sounds and have no idea where they came from just while walking around. Audio cues can be immensely helpful during encounters with the spirits. Some of the background music can be unnerving at times, often playing at just the right moment when you turn down one of the school's dark hallways. It's all very atmospheric and helps to make the game really enjoyable despite its flaws. I can't find any of the more atmospheric BGM, so here's the
official soundtrack that starts with a strangely out of place and catchy song instead.
Honestly, DreadOut is one of those horror games that isn't scary to me. In that respect, it's like the older Silent Hill games. It tends to be more unsettling and interesting, with a few moments of terror here and there. And, just like the old Silent Hill games, that's why the game's atmosphere is so good and why the second act seems so promising. It certainly doesn't measure up to Silent Hill 1, 2, or 3, but it's still good. DreadOut tends to focus on a sense of, well, dread and tension that plays with your expectations. Sometimes I found that I was expecting something to happen when nothing did. Other times I wasn't really expecting anything and suddenly there was this thing walking towards me. Like I already mentioned, the random background sounds add to the feel of tension. DreadOut is just one of those games where playing in a darkened room with headphones really adds to the experience.
I'm convinced that most of the flaws can be traced back to its limited budget. Hopefully the second act is as long or longer than the first act (which I think would take anywhere between two to three hours for most people to finish), and continues to build on the game's strengths while improving on its weaknesses. As it is right now, I think that it's still a good game, even with its short length and flaws.
Hope they restock soon!
