A small town is being taken over by ghouls. Solve puzzles, carefully read notes and use various weapons against horrific and evolving enemies to uncover what is behind this gruesome event. Eternal Evil is an old-school survival-horror game.
Reviews View More
This review contains spoilers
Eternal Evil is a survival horror game/”big titty vampire ragdoll” simulator developed by Honor Games for the Unreal Engine 4, being released in November of 2022. As someone who has tried to do research into the developers, I haven’t really come up with much in the way of information. Then again if I was the best researcher this review would take months and maybe I wouldn’t have flunked out of college. HOYEVER, I was able to find a bit on Reddit (Link below) where the developer was discussing his development of the game, created out of the feeling that the Resident Evil games after 3 (the original) were lacking in their eyes. The results were Eternal Evil, an eastern european survival horror game dealing with a vampire conspiracy. My experience with the game, if I were to remember correctly, was that I either saw it on Youtube at some point (probably through MathChief) or someone on my Steam Friends List wishlisted it. As someone who enjoys survival horror (though sucks at it), and as someone who thoroughly enjoyed first person Resident Evil, seeing creators make more games in that vein piques my interest (examples being ILL or Fobia: St. Dinfa’s Hotel). I had picked it up last year around christmas time and only now have gotten around to playing it because a friend of mine picked it for me to stream.
The plot concerns two protagonists: Detective Hank Richards (aka Hank Dicks as me and my friend would call him) and Marcus Black, two former best friends/special forces and takes place in 2001/2002. Hank calls upon Marcus for his help, as something terrible has happened in the town of Trier. What seems to be vampires have seemingly overrun the town and giant spikes pierce out of the ground, all of which falls back to an old police case involving town wide disappearances and an old hotel run by Howard (or Hovard) Cross. Investigating this hotel, Hank learns that Howard has been working with his assistant David and a prostitute named Jane in order to kidnap people and bring them to the basement. He’s doing this in service to Sefar, the giant behemoth vampire man in a trench coat who's using the blood for purposes unknown. Keep in mind, you won’t learn too much about the origins of the vampires here other than bits and pieces, but you will read up on Cross’s origins. See, Cross’s wife died after committing suicide due to a traumatizing sexual assault and while the assailants were arrested, he was left alone with his daughter. THEN his daughter was kidnapped and murdered, which drove Howard to despise humanity and ultimately accept his offer to kickstart the apocalypse. Sefar had also revealed the name of his daughter’s kidnapper/murderer: Hank Dicks himself. Hank calls up his buddy Marcus, who is making his way into the city. Hank tells Marcus to go to the Police Station instead in order to find evidence that Hank wasn’t involved in his daughter’s death, with the whole thing being a frame job.
Along the way you’ll run into more giant scorpions, snakes, spiders, bats and even Sefar once or twice for a boss battle. If you read some of the documents you’ll also learn that the mutated animals exist due to experimentation with vampire blood. Eventually towards the end you’ll run into Jacob Willis, a scientist who was working with Howard Cross on a cure for the vampire contagion in case everything goes wrong, and the first quarter or so of the game ends on a standoff between Hank and one of Sefar’s giant red trench coat wearing counterparts. Here is where I’ll give the game props, the first quarter and the rest of the game occur simultaneously with each other. Playing through with Marcus you’ll hear dialogue repeated to you by Hank, such as the police station dialogue from earlier, and for the rest of the game you’ll be playing as Marcus (along with encountering Sefar as him in the downtime where he’s not trying to kill Hank).
Marcus is making his way through to the city/town of Trier and reminisces on his friendship with Hank. It’s learned that it’s been three years since their “mission” together, and it’s hinted that something went really wrong. He stops at a nearby gas station, and he encounters Liam (one of the survivors at the beginning with Hank), who gives Marcus the rundown before sacrificing himself with a grenade to buy time. Marcus runs through a forest (encountering remains of a vampire cult) and takes over a train (after killing a vampire bear of course) to drive it into the city. Being told by Hank that he believes that Cross thought that he killed his daughter, Marcus makes his way to the nearby police station to find evidence in the case. Through various means, Marcus encounters evidence of the abduction with Cross’s daughter really being committed by Sefar along with a tape that reveals the rift between Hank and Marcus: Hank had disobeyed orders and innocent civilians died during an order to take down terrorists. Marcus is contacted on Hank’s frequency by Cross, who tells him that Hank has been captured and that he’s going to suffer. Marcus tells him however that he wasn’t responsible and that he found proof, so after a bit of convincing Marcus goes out to make his way to the hotel. Sefar throughout the city section has at least tried to murder the cop three separate times, but on the third time Marcus is able to escape and make his way to the other side of the draw bridge where the hotel is at. However for some reason, Sefar spares Marcus BEFORE he gets shot at and proceeds to jump and run away into the hotel. Making his way to the hotel and up into Cross’s office, he shows him the evidence that it was a set up job by the vampires. Here’s another lapse in judgment, Cross said he knew he couldn’t trust them at all but that he didn’t think he would be involved in his daughter’s death? Well why wouldn’t they? I mean I know he’s grieving but they’re fucking vampires and Sefar is kind of a weird manipulative bastard anyways, though I don’t know maybe I’m making something out of nothing. Regardless, Cross gives Marcus a stone and tells him that he needs to prepare something to attack Sefar with and to go see Hank.
Making his way down into the cellar, Marcus finds Hank vampirified and puts him down in a sad display. Cross tries to convince Marcus to take down Sefar and the vampire conspiracy and just runs off to “stop the apocalypse”. Marcus reads Hank’s last words before reading up on Cross’s notes and getting some silver together for gunpowder bullets. He leaves to the hotel lobby only to engage in a debate with Sefar about the state of mankind, free will and all of that before finally seemingly killing Sefar once and for all....in a cutscene. Yeah there’s no final boss battle for that but whatever I guess. Afterwards, Marcus makes his way to the nearby graveyard and finds Cross’s key before entering the catacomb. The final stretch of the game is where they end up dropping the most background lore and getting into some weird dark lord shit. Marcus finds an ancient book and learns of an ancient conflict between Sefar’s master, Saron, and Alukar. It turns out that millenia ago, vampires used to be the master race on Earth who enslaved humanity in order to ensure peace. Alukar was an underling who switched and helped humanity rebel against Saron’s ways and as such, the vampires were buried for a long time (including Alukar who was betrayed by the humans) with no one knowing of their existence presumably. Sefar being the only survivor, has worked in the shadows to resurrect and protect his master; whom you eventually get to meet.
Once you solve the puzzles and make your way to him, Saron wakes up and threatens Marcus’s life, before attempting to conscript him into the vampire cause. Deciding to wake up Alukar instead (as he decides to not kill Marcus immediately and gives him time to ponder death or conversion), a battle between the two vampire lords ensues before Marcus is left to finish the job. Shooting the metal thing on his chest and destroying his healing emitters, Saron is weakened and begs for you to spare him. You’re given two options: spare him and join him on his vampire quest or kill him and end the vampire threat once and for all. Either way however, it’s a bad ending; join Saron and you get your throat slashed, revived with ancient vampire blood and humanity is enslaved once again (though Howard and his assistant Jacob may have found a cure, and if you choose this ending it’s the only wrap up to Cross’s arc). Kill Saron and Alukar converts you into a vampire to stop future threats, and a timeline emerges where humanity ends up destroying each other with no vampire lords to enslave them. Either way you’re doomed, and the game ends with the undead Marcus leaving his pistol on top of Hank’s grave, mourning the death of his friend.
Overall, the plot is an intriguing one with a lot of detailed lore going on in the background. You mostly learn of this lore through in-game notes as well as cutscenes and while it’s occasionally confusing to morph together, once you beat the game you unlock a whole lore option in the menu where it gives you background info on characters and events. The story has themes of weakness versus strength and survival of the fittest and all of that and for the most part I felt like it did those fine. I just kind of wish some of this stuff was pieced together a little bit better, though that also could’ve been due to the fact that I had played it over several weekends and had forgotten some parts. However, I did feel that some things were a little bit confusing and if you didn’t read up on the notes then you’d have no idea what’s going on with certain things. Jacob is a huge example, you only run into him once in the main campaign and you’d be forgiven if you forgot about him because other than notes of “he’s helping to make a cure”, you don’t really see him or know anything about him and he’s kind of considered important to the lore. The too long didn’t read version is that the story for the most part is decent and has interesting tidbits, though I personally would’ve paced it differently and maybe would’ve foreshadowed the dark lord vampire Saron stuff a bit earlier than having it all happen in the last forty five minutes of gameplay.
The gameplay is very much akin to Resident Evil 7 in terms of it’s first person horror influence. You solve puzzles, try to perform headshots on vampires, most people know the general thing with survival horror games. I’ll say my experience with the gameplay for the most part is pretty solid, the most important part being the gunplay. Let me tell you, the actual shooting and gunplay feel pretty damn good considering the one man (or small indie team I keep hearing different things) show the game has going for it. Popping off shots feels immensely satisfying from the weapons, which range from pistols to the shotgun to an AK-47 and other unlockable weapons you can acquire by collecting Euros and buying them in store in the menu. Like getting actual headshots feels great, like you did some damage. The shotgun is the most overpowered thing alive (aside with dealing with boss creatures) and was my favorite gun in the entire game. The only weapon I didn't really like was the grenade launcher, but that was because it often felt off...I don't know how to explain it but it didn't have that "oomph" that it should. Otherwise, most of the weapons feel great and that's one of my favorite parts about the gameplay overall, I can't stress that enough. For the most part, finding ammo and health in your environment feels like the appropriate amount to make you feel powerful but wary of expanding your ammo. Obviously you can’t let enemies get close to you or else they’ll grab you and chomp into you, with the regular enemies morphing into fast crawling vampires that’ll hit harder the next time it chases. I appreciate this little detail, and it kind of reminds me of the Crimson Heads from RE1 Remake, a sort of more threatening upgrade of sorts so they’re not just some shambling corpses.
However, I’ll admit that at least with regular enemies that figuring out animations could sometimes be frustrating. If you were to say play the old RE games, you can kind of tell when a zombie was about to grapple you. Here it was sorta consistent, but there were times where I’d get grabbed and couldn’t tell an animation was going on because the character model on the vampires had no build up. These animations go even if they grab you through a door, and can damage you with swipes or grabs as well, though luckily because of the jank you can kind of headshot them when their head clips through the door as well. Obviously this isn’t intentional, but considering the arms tend to clip through doors anyways, it’s kind of a godsend with certain enemies if you wanted to jank them.
Also keep in mind, a lot of these monsters can come out of nowhere, which for scare purposes it’s excellent. The hotel however is a really claustrophobic place, and you’ll have giant scorpions pop out of nowhere and their running animation has no noise to react to. That was one of the things that had happened to me, running into a room that had a giant scorpion on the bottom floor, and it crawled up and it was dead silent and I got my booty hole smashed in five seconds. I guess that’s a nice way to transition to healing: If they damage you, you can pick up health items too though they only consist of chocolate bars and water bottles for 50% and 100% health refills only. I don’t have an issue with it, though I find it hilarious that the cure for a vampire bite is just to drink some water and you’ll be good. Either way though, th e level design in that regard is usually hit or miss, mostly in how often it likes to give you dead ends and not much room to maneuver in boss fights.
The biggest offender for this is Saron in the final fight, you literally only have a small T shaped walkway and his area of effect attacks tend to damage you real quick, and while it’s offset by the damage not being too bad it’s still kind of annoying to be honest. Another example is fighting the giant scorpion after climbing down the rope from the attic, it’s so big and catches up to you real quick and riding your ass right? Then they put down a chest for you to get ammo and stuff from, but if the scorpion is right on you all the time then why put it there? It probably would’ve been better to have lowered the speed of the scorpion if it’s such a small area in that case.
Bringing it to a different topic really quickly, the unlockables: You won’t be able to unlock everything in the first run, but I was able to unlock probably 75% of everything from infinite ammo, a survival mode (which I tried once and sucked at so didn’t bother trying again), futuristic pistols and machine guns and the ability to spawn weapons in your inventory. There are also weapon upgrades and inventory slots, though they only pop up in special encounters like the hotel in the city (one of only two places where the choice system actually matters…or appears at all) or in the city where finding the codes on dead cops leads you to get weapon upgrades which…I didn’t notice the difference. Most of these require you to solve some sort of puzzle and can be easily missed if you’re not paying attention.
Speaking of, puzzles for me for the most part felt fine, like I was able to figure most of them out by winging it. However, there were definitely a couple of stingers that confused the hell out of me. For example, I really don’t care for chess puzzles. I’m not a chess guy, and while they do have a note which explains certain puzzle solutions or shows hints, I felt like that was a bit much. In fact, most of the time that I was stuck in the game, it was the beginning quarter of the game due to the sheer confusion in figuring out your layout and what you're supposed to do. Some of my least favorite puzzles include the globe puzzle which is like a safe combination, you spin it to certain spots in order for it to open up. The whole knight statue crest thing has so many damn crests that it would’ve been really frustrating if I wasn't looking up a guide. Also, one puzzle solution requires you to open a wallet up for a key, so please keep that in mind and double check to examine your inventory in case you end up missing something.
One of the most frustrating puzzle bits in the later portion of the game is when you’re forced to go into the holding cells and there’s a gas leak. You can’t shoot the vampires or you die instantly, so the solution is to bring your knife. Another problem with that is at least when I played this section, the vampires were a lot more difficult to kill then usual and I died a couple of times just trying to kill them while also exploiting their noclip animations through the bar cells.
Luckily if one sucks at puzzles (though your stuck dealing with the gas), you can collect gray puzzle skulls, which when inputted right next to the puzzle itself will instantly solve it if you so wish for it to be solved, though keep in mind there aren’t that many skulls in the game so you’ll need to save some and be strategic…or just use a guide. Regardless, my summary on the gameplay aspect of the game is that it’s fine for the most part!! It just could’ve used a bit more polish and a couple of changes here and there but other than that, a lot of my complaints feel like nitpicks so who knows, maybe I just suck at games.
Graphically I’ll start out by saying that the game looks pretty good for the most part, except a few bits here and there. Sometimes the character models look phenomenal, but then sometimes they look a bit…strange. Obviously the undead are supposed to look strange and that’s perfectly okay, in fact I feel like the strangeness can work to their favor. But they look strange in a way where they look like strange marionettes more than threatening vampires. Obviously, the game was the work of one developer with the help of others and as such I’m not expecting them to look perfect. I guess it just looks like something is a bit unfinished and therefore kind of adds to the janky but endearing atmosphere that the game delivered to me.
None of this is more apparent once it breaks out the ragdoll physics, where one of the options in game is to pick up objects…as well as dead bodies. There’s been a couple of times where I would kill a vampire or a mutated scorpion and their arms would get caught in the environment in some way and they’d flop around all over the place. The animations with some of the other enemies are also weird, like what I call “The Tickler”, not because he actually tickles you but his running animation is so goofy that I can’t really take it seriously. Like, they run in place right? But they’re floating towards you and they look like Lickers from Resident Evil 2 if they were jacked and running in place. I guess graphically speaking otherwise, the game looks fine; it has the HD textures that look really smooth and I can definitely understand why the game is 30 or so gigabytes. I know I’ve heard mumblings of all of them being Unreal Engine asset flips, I don’t know because I can’t verify that (though I doubt it's the case), but most of the environments look pretty cool and high definition even if it’s imperfect due to the jank nature of the game.
The actual atmosphere itself is definitely on the darker and oppressive side. The first quarter in the hotel is a labyrinth of dread as you navigate and try to figure out where you’re going all the while being wary of when you’ll get jumped by the next boss creature or potential vampire lurking around the corner. Going through the dark forest can be tense and the city itself breaks out the freaky fog that Silent Hill fans would cream their pants for. Multiple times throughout the game you’ll run into survivors who are in life or death decisions, about to shoot themselves, and mutilated bodies all over the place. The city (or town or whatever) is in chaos and you can tell that it’s the near apocalypse and barely anyone was able to survive. In that style, it can work with being unsettling, but there are also a couple of things working against that horror atmosphere. One example: if I remember correctly the town of Triers takes place in America. I could be wrong, considering the voice actors and character names and all of that; but in a lot of areas there’ll be eastern european language stuff (like the cemetery), or you’ll find the “Lorem Ipsum” gibberish that people copy paste as placeholder text in places that aren’t just small text you’re not supposed to read. The last example I have is more of a personal one, they have a couple of nude or half naked vampires that attack you and I’ll be honest I always laughed, especially because extra emphasis was placed on titty jiggle physics.
Audio Design for the most part is a very small portion at least in terms of music. You’ll hear a little bit of a wind up with strings in certain parts of the game, as well as a safe room theme that does genuinely feel like something straight out of the old RE games. It’s not to say that the music is bad, there’s music and for the most part it’s good. It adds to the atmosphere and gives it some charm, however there isn’t really anything I could say that really pops out at me with the game soundtrack wise. The overall audio design behind it is pretty damn solid though! Guns feel impactful, the sounds of your feet as they walk over the floor have this pattering sound that’s delightful, I honestly don’t think I have anything bad to say about that. In fact, I think that the sound design and the first person perspective is pretty much what attracted me to this game to begin with, though I’ll go out of my way and say that the voice acting hits somewhere between decent and old survival level horrors of funny but I never really took an issue with this to be honest. Even then, it’s not like the voice actors are bad or anything, it’s quite the opposite as the people who voice Hank and Marcus sound like they fit for the part; I just believe that sometimes it might just be the delivery of it.
To summarize, Eternal Evil is one of those games that is sure as hell not perfect. It’s janky, mistranslated and for the most part made me laugh (minus a few jumpscares). But I say this all with the utmost respect for the developer and his work. They’re an Eastern European fellow and while there’s jank in here, there’s a lot of charm that comes along with it, and it’s playable from front to back. Everything felt well for the most part, and streaming this for my friend, we had a lot of fun with this one. The developers also seem to be on a bit of a role here with it, because soon after releasing this game they’ve been working on games in what seems to be a new series called “Survival & Horror”, with entries like Hangman’s Rope, Mortanis Prisoners 1 and The Damned City. Mortanis is in early access while Damned City hasn’t been heard from since but what I’ll say is that even though there was goofy stuff in Eternal Evil, the developer has talent and I’m genuinely interested in seeing them hopefully grow. It takes a lot of work being a game developer or a software developer of any kind and I respect the grind that these guys put in. I’d say if you’re patient and willing to shovel through most of the jank (pretty much all of this guy’s games are Mostly Positive) that there’s a bit of a rough gem underneath. I’d recommend getting this game on sale and maybe sitting down for a couple of days, though don’t be afraid to use a guide and make sure you save often.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EternalEvil
https://www.reddit.com/r/residentevil/comments/rtqib7/eternal_evil_is_a_re_inspired_game_that_my_friend/
https://showgamer.com/en/prohozhdeniya-igr/974-prohozhdenie-eternal-evil
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=csC-tOR6AuA
https://www.youtube.com/@HonorGamesStudio/videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSALdqXTP6k&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XGv8MAHE9o&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32ejPTIlv0&ab_channel=gamemast15r
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot concerns two protagonists: Detective Hank Richards (aka Hank Dicks as me and my friend would call him) and Marcus Black, two former best friends/special forces and takes place in 2001/2002. Hank calls upon Marcus for his help, as something terrible has happened in the town of Trier. What seems to be vampires have seemingly overrun the town and giant spikes pierce out of the ground, all of which falls back to an old police case involving town wide disappearances and an old hotel run by Howard (or Hovard) Cross. Investigating this hotel, Hank learns that Howard has been working with his assistant David and a prostitute named Jane in order to kidnap people and bring them to the basement. He’s doing this in service to Sefar, the giant behemoth vampire man in a trench coat who's using the blood for purposes unknown. Keep in mind, you won’t learn too much about the origins of the vampires here other than bits and pieces, but you will read up on Cross’s origins. See, Cross’s wife died after committing suicide due to a traumatizing sexual assault and while the assailants were arrested, he was left alone with his daughter. THEN his daughter was kidnapped and murdered, which drove Howard to despise humanity and ultimately accept his offer to kickstart the apocalypse. Sefar had also revealed the name of his daughter’s kidnapper/murderer: Hank Dicks himself. Hank calls up his buddy Marcus, who is making his way into the city. Hank tells Marcus to go to the Police Station instead in order to find evidence that Hank wasn’t involved in his daughter’s death, with the whole thing being a frame job.
Along the way you’ll run into more giant scorpions, snakes, spiders, bats and even Sefar once or twice for a boss battle. If you read some of the documents you’ll also learn that the mutated animals exist due to experimentation with vampire blood. Eventually towards the end you’ll run into Jacob Willis, a scientist who was working with Howard Cross on a cure for the vampire contagion in case everything goes wrong, and the first quarter or so of the game ends on a standoff between Hank and one of Sefar’s giant red trench coat wearing counterparts. Here is where I’ll give the game props, the first quarter and the rest of the game occur simultaneously with each other. Playing through with Marcus you’ll hear dialogue repeated to you by Hank, such as the police station dialogue from earlier, and for the rest of the game you’ll be playing as Marcus (along with encountering Sefar as him in the downtime where he’s not trying to kill Hank).
Marcus is making his way through to the city/town of Trier and reminisces on his friendship with Hank. It’s learned that it’s been three years since their “mission” together, and it’s hinted that something went really wrong. He stops at a nearby gas station, and he encounters Liam (one of the survivors at the beginning with Hank), who gives Marcus the rundown before sacrificing himself with a grenade to buy time. Marcus runs through a forest (encountering remains of a vampire cult) and takes over a train (after killing a vampire bear of course) to drive it into the city. Being told by Hank that he believes that Cross thought that he killed his daughter, Marcus makes his way to the nearby police station to find evidence in the case. Through various means, Marcus encounters evidence of the abduction with Cross’s daughter really being committed by Sefar along with a tape that reveals the rift between Hank and Marcus: Hank had disobeyed orders and innocent civilians died during an order to take down terrorists. Marcus is contacted on Hank’s frequency by Cross, who tells him that Hank has been captured and that he’s going to suffer. Marcus tells him however that he wasn’t responsible and that he found proof, so after a bit of convincing Marcus goes out to make his way to the hotel. Sefar throughout the city section has at least tried to murder the cop three separate times, but on the third time Marcus is able to escape and make his way to the other side of the draw bridge where the hotel is at. However for some reason, Sefar spares Marcus BEFORE he gets shot at and proceeds to jump and run away into the hotel. Making his way to the hotel and up into Cross’s office, he shows him the evidence that it was a set up job by the vampires. Here’s another lapse in judgment, Cross said he knew he couldn’t trust them at all but that he didn’t think he would be involved in his daughter’s death? Well why wouldn’t they? I mean I know he’s grieving but they’re fucking vampires and Sefar is kind of a weird manipulative bastard anyways, though I don’t know maybe I’m making something out of nothing. Regardless, Cross gives Marcus a stone and tells him that he needs to prepare something to attack Sefar with and to go see Hank.
Making his way down into the cellar, Marcus finds Hank vampirified and puts him down in a sad display. Cross tries to convince Marcus to take down Sefar and the vampire conspiracy and just runs off to “stop the apocalypse”. Marcus reads Hank’s last words before reading up on Cross’s notes and getting some silver together for gunpowder bullets. He leaves to the hotel lobby only to engage in a debate with Sefar about the state of mankind, free will and all of that before finally seemingly killing Sefar once and for all....in a cutscene. Yeah there’s no final boss battle for that but whatever I guess. Afterwards, Marcus makes his way to the nearby graveyard and finds Cross’s key before entering the catacomb. The final stretch of the game is where they end up dropping the most background lore and getting into some weird dark lord shit. Marcus finds an ancient book and learns of an ancient conflict between Sefar’s master, Saron, and Alukar. It turns out that millenia ago, vampires used to be the master race on Earth who enslaved humanity in order to ensure peace. Alukar was an underling who switched and helped humanity rebel against Saron’s ways and as such, the vampires were buried for a long time (including Alukar who was betrayed by the humans) with no one knowing of their existence presumably. Sefar being the only survivor, has worked in the shadows to resurrect and protect his master; whom you eventually get to meet.
Once you solve the puzzles and make your way to him, Saron wakes up and threatens Marcus’s life, before attempting to conscript him into the vampire cause. Deciding to wake up Alukar instead (as he decides to not kill Marcus immediately and gives him time to ponder death or conversion), a battle between the two vampire lords ensues before Marcus is left to finish the job. Shooting the metal thing on his chest and destroying his healing emitters, Saron is weakened and begs for you to spare him. You’re given two options: spare him and join him on his vampire quest or kill him and end the vampire threat once and for all. Either way however, it’s a bad ending; join Saron and you get your throat slashed, revived with ancient vampire blood and humanity is enslaved once again (though Howard and his assistant Jacob may have found a cure, and if you choose this ending it’s the only wrap up to Cross’s arc). Kill Saron and Alukar converts you into a vampire to stop future threats, and a timeline emerges where humanity ends up destroying each other with no vampire lords to enslave them. Either way you’re doomed, and the game ends with the undead Marcus leaving his pistol on top of Hank’s grave, mourning the death of his friend.
Overall, the plot is an intriguing one with a lot of detailed lore going on in the background. You mostly learn of this lore through in-game notes as well as cutscenes and while it’s occasionally confusing to morph together, once you beat the game you unlock a whole lore option in the menu where it gives you background info on characters and events. The story has themes of weakness versus strength and survival of the fittest and all of that and for the most part I felt like it did those fine. I just kind of wish some of this stuff was pieced together a little bit better, though that also could’ve been due to the fact that I had played it over several weekends and had forgotten some parts. However, I did feel that some things were a little bit confusing and if you didn’t read up on the notes then you’d have no idea what’s going on with certain things. Jacob is a huge example, you only run into him once in the main campaign and you’d be forgiven if you forgot about him because other than notes of “he’s helping to make a cure”, you don’t really see him or know anything about him and he’s kind of considered important to the lore. The too long didn’t read version is that the story for the most part is decent and has interesting tidbits, though I personally would’ve paced it differently and maybe would’ve foreshadowed the dark lord vampire Saron stuff a bit earlier than having it all happen in the last forty five minutes of gameplay.
The gameplay is very much akin to Resident Evil 7 in terms of it’s first person horror influence. You solve puzzles, try to perform headshots on vampires, most people know the general thing with survival horror games. I’ll say my experience with the gameplay for the most part is pretty solid, the most important part being the gunplay. Let me tell you, the actual shooting and gunplay feel pretty damn good considering the one man (or small indie team I keep hearing different things) show the game has going for it. Popping off shots feels immensely satisfying from the weapons, which range from pistols to the shotgun to an AK-47 and other unlockable weapons you can acquire by collecting Euros and buying them in store in the menu. Like getting actual headshots feels great, like you did some damage. The shotgun is the most overpowered thing alive (aside with dealing with boss creatures) and was my favorite gun in the entire game. The only weapon I didn't really like was the grenade launcher, but that was because it often felt off...I don't know how to explain it but it didn't have that "oomph" that it should. Otherwise, most of the weapons feel great and that's one of my favorite parts about the gameplay overall, I can't stress that enough. For the most part, finding ammo and health in your environment feels like the appropriate amount to make you feel powerful but wary of expanding your ammo. Obviously you can’t let enemies get close to you or else they’ll grab you and chomp into you, with the regular enemies morphing into fast crawling vampires that’ll hit harder the next time it chases. I appreciate this little detail, and it kind of reminds me of the Crimson Heads from RE1 Remake, a sort of more threatening upgrade of sorts so they’re not just some shambling corpses.
However, I’ll admit that at least with regular enemies that figuring out animations could sometimes be frustrating. If you were to say play the old RE games, you can kind of tell when a zombie was about to grapple you. Here it was sorta consistent, but there were times where I’d get grabbed and couldn’t tell an animation was going on because the character model on the vampires had no build up. These animations go even if they grab you through a door, and can damage you with swipes or grabs as well, though luckily because of the jank you can kind of headshot them when their head clips through the door as well. Obviously this isn’t intentional, but considering the arms tend to clip through doors anyways, it’s kind of a godsend with certain enemies if you wanted to jank them.
Also keep in mind, a lot of these monsters can come out of nowhere, which for scare purposes it’s excellent. The hotel however is a really claustrophobic place, and you’ll have giant scorpions pop out of nowhere and their running animation has no noise to react to. That was one of the things that had happened to me, running into a room that had a giant scorpion on the bottom floor, and it crawled up and it was dead silent and I got my booty hole smashed in five seconds. I guess that’s a nice way to transition to healing: If they damage you, you can pick up health items too though they only consist of chocolate bars and water bottles for 50% and 100% health refills only. I don’t have an issue with it, though I find it hilarious that the cure for a vampire bite is just to drink some water and you’ll be good. Either way though, th e level design in that regard is usually hit or miss, mostly in how often it likes to give you dead ends and not much room to maneuver in boss fights.
The biggest offender for this is Saron in the final fight, you literally only have a small T shaped walkway and his area of effect attacks tend to damage you real quick, and while it’s offset by the damage not being too bad it’s still kind of annoying to be honest. Another example is fighting the giant scorpion after climbing down the rope from the attic, it’s so big and catches up to you real quick and riding your ass right? Then they put down a chest for you to get ammo and stuff from, but if the scorpion is right on you all the time then why put it there? It probably would’ve been better to have lowered the speed of the scorpion if it’s such a small area in that case.
Bringing it to a different topic really quickly, the unlockables: You won’t be able to unlock everything in the first run, but I was able to unlock probably 75% of everything from infinite ammo, a survival mode (which I tried once and sucked at so didn’t bother trying again), futuristic pistols and machine guns and the ability to spawn weapons in your inventory. There are also weapon upgrades and inventory slots, though they only pop up in special encounters like the hotel in the city (one of only two places where the choice system actually matters…or appears at all) or in the city where finding the codes on dead cops leads you to get weapon upgrades which…I didn’t notice the difference. Most of these require you to solve some sort of puzzle and can be easily missed if you’re not paying attention.
Speaking of, puzzles for me for the most part felt fine, like I was able to figure most of them out by winging it. However, there were definitely a couple of stingers that confused the hell out of me. For example, I really don’t care for chess puzzles. I’m not a chess guy, and while they do have a note which explains certain puzzle solutions or shows hints, I felt like that was a bit much. In fact, most of the time that I was stuck in the game, it was the beginning quarter of the game due to the sheer confusion in figuring out your layout and what you're supposed to do. Some of my least favorite puzzles include the globe puzzle which is like a safe combination, you spin it to certain spots in order for it to open up. The whole knight statue crest thing has so many damn crests that it would’ve been really frustrating if I wasn't looking up a guide. Also, one puzzle solution requires you to open a wallet up for a key, so please keep that in mind and double check to examine your inventory in case you end up missing something.
One of the most frustrating puzzle bits in the later portion of the game is when you’re forced to go into the holding cells and there’s a gas leak. You can’t shoot the vampires or you die instantly, so the solution is to bring your knife. Another problem with that is at least when I played this section, the vampires were a lot more difficult to kill then usual and I died a couple of times just trying to kill them while also exploiting their noclip animations through the bar cells.
Luckily if one sucks at puzzles (though your stuck dealing with the gas), you can collect gray puzzle skulls, which when inputted right next to the puzzle itself will instantly solve it if you so wish for it to be solved, though keep in mind there aren’t that many skulls in the game so you’ll need to save some and be strategic…or just use a guide. Regardless, my summary on the gameplay aspect of the game is that it’s fine for the most part!! It just could’ve used a bit more polish and a couple of changes here and there but other than that, a lot of my complaints feel like nitpicks so who knows, maybe I just suck at games.
Graphically I’ll start out by saying that the game looks pretty good for the most part, except a few bits here and there. Sometimes the character models look phenomenal, but then sometimes they look a bit…strange. Obviously the undead are supposed to look strange and that’s perfectly okay, in fact I feel like the strangeness can work to their favor. But they look strange in a way where they look like strange marionettes more than threatening vampires. Obviously, the game was the work of one developer with the help of others and as such I’m not expecting them to look perfect. I guess it just looks like something is a bit unfinished and therefore kind of adds to the janky but endearing atmosphere that the game delivered to me.
None of this is more apparent once it breaks out the ragdoll physics, where one of the options in game is to pick up objects…as well as dead bodies. There’s been a couple of times where I would kill a vampire or a mutated scorpion and their arms would get caught in the environment in some way and they’d flop around all over the place. The animations with some of the other enemies are also weird, like what I call “The Tickler”, not because he actually tickles you but his running animation is so goofy that I can’t really take it seriously. Like, they run in place right? But they’re floating towards you and they look like Lickers from Resident Evil 2 if they were jacked and running in place. I guess graphically speaking otherwise, the game looks fine; it has the HD textures that look really smooth and I can definitely understand why the game is 30 or so gigabytes. I know I’ve heard mumblings of all of them being Unreal Engine asset flips, I don’t know because I can’t verify that (though I doubt it's the case), but most of the environments look pretty cool and high definition even if it’s imperfect due to the jank nature of the game.
The actual atmosphere itself is definitely on the darker and oppressive side. The first quarter in the hotel is a labyrinth of dread as you navigate and try to figure out where you’re going all the while being wary of when you’ll get jumped by the next boss creature or potential vampire lurking around the corner. Going through the dark forest can be tense and the city itself breaks out the freaky fog that Silent Hill fans would cream their pants for. Multiple times throughout the game you’ll run into survivors who are in life or death decisions, about to shoot themselves, and mutilated bodies all over the place. The city (or town or whatever) is in chaos and you can tell that it’s the near apocalypse and barely anyone was able to survive. In that style, it can work with being unsettling, but there are also a couple of things working against that horror atmosphere. One example: if I remember correctly the town of Triers takes place in America. I could be wrong, considering the voice actors and character names and all of that; but in a lot of areas there’ll be eastern european language stuff (like the cemetery), or you’ll find the “Lorem Ipsum” gibberish that people copy paste as placeholder text in places that aren’t just small text you’re not supposed to read. The last example I have is more of a personal one, they have a couple of nude or half naked vampires that attack you and I’ll be honest I always laughed, especially because extra emphasis was placed on titty jiggle physics.
Audio Design for the most part is a very small portion at least in terms of music. You’ll hear a little bit of a wind up with strings in certain parts of the game, as well as a safe room theme that does genuinely feel like something straight out of the old RE games. It’s not to say that the music is bad, there’s music and for the most part it’s good. It adds to the atmosphere and gives it some charm, however there isn’t really anything I could say that really pops out at me with the game soundtrack wise. The overall audio design behind it is pretty damn solid though! Guns feel impactful, the sounds of your feet as they walk over the floor have this pattering sound that’s delightful, I honestly don’t think I have anything bad to say about that. In fact, I think that the sound design and the first person perspective is pretty much what attracted me to this game to begin with, though I’ll go out of my way and say that the voice acting hits somewhere between decent and old survival level horrors of funny but I never really took an issue with this to be honest. Even then, it’s not like the voice actors are bad or anything, it’s quite the opposite as the people who voice Hank and Marcus sound like they fit for the part; I just believe that sometimes it might just be the delivery of it.
To summarize, Eternal Evil is one of those games that is sure as hell not perfect. It’s janky, mistranslated and for the most part made me laugh (minus a few jumpscares). But I say this all with the utmost respect for the developer and his work. They’re an Eastern European fellow and while there’s jank in here, there’s a lot of charm that comes along with it, and it’s playable from front to back. Everything felt well for the most part, and streaming this for my friend, we had a lot of fun with this one. The developers also seem to be on a bit of a role here with it, because soon after releasing this game they’ve been working on games in what seems to be a new series called “Survival & Horror”, with entries like Hangman’s Rope, Mortanis Prisoners 1 and The Damned City. Mortanis is in early access while Damned City hasn’t been heard from since but what I’ll say is that even though there was goofy stuff in Eternal Evil, the developer has talent and I’m genuinely interested in seeing them hopefully grow. It takes a lot of work being a game developer or a software developer of any kind and I respect the grind that these guys put in. I’d say if you’re patient and willing to shovel through most of the jank (pretty much all of this guy’s games are Mostly Positive) that there’s a bit of a rough gem underneath. I’d recommend getting this game on sale and maybe sitting down for a couple of days, though don’t be afraid to use a guide and make sure you save often.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EternalEvil
https://www.reddit.com/r/residentevil/comments/rtqib7/eternal_evil_is_a_re_inspired_game_that_my_friend/
https://showgamer.com/en/prohozhdeniya-igr/974-prohozhdenie-eternal-evil
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=csC-tOR6AuA
https://www.youtube.com/@HonorGamesStudio/videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSALdqXTP6k&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XGv8MAHE9o&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32ejPTIlv0&ab_channel=gamemast15r
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/