A great example of how setting a good rhythm that makes you think you are in danger (when in reality you mostly aren't) is sometimes a better approach for a horror game than putting the player in actual, mood-breaking danger. I call it (endearingly) "horror games for chickens", more worried with setting a tone and a theme and conveying them through a story than with jumpscares and difficulty spikes.
Think Annihilation meets The Thing in an offshore platform and you will have a good idea of what this game is about. Despite being pretty linear and scripted, I didn't feel the typical constraint from the terrible ghost-train-games from the awful Bloober Team, for instance -- probably because an oil platform is an amazing, unique setting and you are allowed to move in relative liberty, interacting with characters and places and getting to know a bit of them at your own pace.
I have to say, though, that this was unfortunately where the game kinda lost me: the characters. It asks me to care about them, but in all honesty I don't think we are given enough time or reason to even remember these people. That includes the protagonist, whose development arc comes to completion in a rather anticlimactic manner. This ultimately hurts the game -- some people may find this sort of failing unforgivable. But I, for one, was too entranced by the beautiful abomination that takes the Beira D Oil Rig and the existential dread it unleashes to be bothered.

Reviewed on Jun 24, 2024


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