This review contains very mild spoilers

I very rarely play any form of horror games as its something I would much rather watch than play but something about this game got me really interested from when I saw the first trailer a few months ago. Played it through game pass and I'm really glad I decided to try it because I loved this game from start to finish.

You play as Cameron "Caz" McCleary who is working as an electrician on an oil rig set of the coast of Scotland whilst on the run from the police. While on the rig, the drill hits something that causes these weird tendril looking things to start taking over the rig and all the crew working on it. Caz has to work alongside his crewmates to try and get off the rig. First off, setting a horror game on an oil rig is an brilliant idea as it serves as creepy lonely location that is both claustrophobic enough to bring that feeling of tension whilst being open enough to give some variety. I really like how they didn't make the whole game crawling through tight dark corridors as that would of got boring really quickly, instead Caz is always on the move across the entire rig which keeps the objectives feeling fresh. Speaking of Caz, he serves as a pretty good protagonist, no characters are given any major development besides him and his motives of wanting to get back to his family are good ways to make him sympathetic. Other notable side characters include Rennick, the boss of the rig who is a complete dick from the first time you see him and Roy, the rig's chef and Caz's best friend who got him the job on the rig.

The monsters that start to roam the rig are aboslutely horrifying to look at. I heard that a lot of inspiration came from the movie "The Thing" which is one of my favourite horror movies. Each crew member is completely unrecognisable as they get turned into amalgamations of blood and tendrils. The fact that the monsters still talk using the voices of the crew members they have took over is also terrifying as hearing a human voice come from these things is very unsettling. I like how it is left very ambiguous about what the monsters actually are and how it spread to so many of the crew.

The gameplay is very simple with no form of combat outside of being able to throw distractions. Very walking simulator esq with a lot of climbing sections as well. It isn't a game that requires more than that as there is no believable way that Caz could fight the monsters. I do think more could have been done with certain mechanics as they seemed very pointless, primarily the ability to hide in lockers as I really never found a need to as you could just distract whatever is in front of you and run. Also I think they were too quick to kill off a lot of the characters as by the half way part of the game almost all the crew members are dead. What I liked a lot about the early game is getting the random phone calls from crew all over the rig all in total bewilderment as to what was happening and it made the atmosphere so much more tense to me.

Visually the game is breath taking. Making use of Unreal Engine 5 the rig looks like it was ripped straight out of real life. I'd also like to commend the voice acting from the entire cast especially Alec Newman in the leading role. It was cool to see pretty much a full Scottish cast and use of authentic accents, not that stupid hollywood Scottish accent that you see all the time in movies. Nothing to note really in terms of score, no tracks of note as the game makes great use of sound design to build tension. The rig is constantly making noise as well as the creatures on it which serves as great tension building.

No major complaints at all really. I do think it is a bit short especially for the £30 price tag, I beat it in just over 4 hours. As I already mentioned I think they were too quick to kill off a lot of the side characters as I would have liked to see a lot more of some of them.

Overall a great short but sweet horror experience. Very highly recommended