Every time I see a promotional video trying to prove to me and the populace at large how scary something is through bits and pieces of footage snipped together with their screams and overly dramatic reactions, a little tingle in the back of my head starts to go off. It’s almost like Spider-Man’s spider-sense, but more along the lines of a bull excrement detector, not because I am highly skilled at pointing out paid actors or anything, but because this is something that is rarely delivered on in the horror world. Does Blair Witch fail in this aspect like so many horror games before it? It isn’t a bad horror game in the traditional sense of the word; it just doesn’t add much we haven’t seen before and feels like a mash-up of ideas from some of the best entries in the genre from the past.

Set in 1996, the story follows our protagonist Ellis and his trusty dog Bullet as they join the search of the Black Hills Forest for a missing boy. Ellis comes packing a flashlight, a walkie talkie, a cell phone, and tons of mental issues in the form of repressed trauma and emotional baggage from lingering mistakes from his past. On paper, this sounds like the perfect setup for a horror game, but the thing is, this is almost play for play the premise from Silent Hill: Homecoming. The game actually borrows so much from the Silent Hill franchise, it would feel more at home there than as an extension of the Blair Witch universe, as it only capitalizes on minor events or themes from the Blair Witch Project and its sequels.

The core gameplay is the staple of the current world of horror games – a walking sim with light puzzle solving and some brief moments of combat… kind of. Not really. The puzzles I mentioned are in most cases finding keys, lock codes, and interacting with objects within the world; that is, until you find the camera. Early into the game you’ll find a camera which will require you to seek out tapes along the journey, and when being viewed at the right place, allow you to change the present world before your eyes. Again, this is something we’ve seen before, but in this case they managed to make it work in a way that still feels new and unique where previous attempts have failed. The combat, on the other hand, feels completely uninspired and should’ve been left on the cutting room floor. The first enemy type you’ll encounter, which looks decent when and if you manage to get a good look at it, is a semi-invisible being that looks like an emaciated version of Marvel Comics’ Venom who borrowed the Predator’s cloaking ability. These beings will circle you and at random, only subsiding when you hit them with your flashlight enough… which is something brought over from Alan Wake, among others.

By far the greatest achievement the game brings to the table is Bullet. Not just because I am a dog person, but he actually feels like he’s a real dog. He’ll bark at danger (or in some cases, just those weird little wooden figures from the movie), seek out useful items and guide you in the right direction. Issuing commands to him is as simple as tapping the LB or holding it to get into more specific requests, and he follows his orders like the best of them. By the end of the game, he was the sole character I gave a damn about and remains to be the high point of the experience, even though he’s essentially the same dog from Fable 2 – since that isn’t a horror game, I’ll let this one slide. The single issue I have with Bullet is that, like most of the game, his appearance is hit or miss due to the uneven visuals.

When you’re standing still with minimal lighting, the game looks almost picture perfect – the foliage has so much texture it feels like you could reach out and pluck a leaf right off the screen. Of course, once something moves the elements get muddy and pop in and out so much you’d swear Bethesda developed the game. This is a constant issue when playing on the vanilla Xbox One (this was written before Chad had an Xbox One X), and rears its head quite often, especially when you look at Bullet who goes from looking covered in mud to having realistic fur in the blink of an eye every single time he comes into frame. Other bugs come out to play frequently, such as getting lodged between tight groupings of trees with no way forward outside of restarting from a checkpoint (which can’t be done from the menu of the game).

The game manages to get a few things right, even if the end result isn’t something that makes you regret not wearing your brown pants. The Bloober Team’s signature move of having the world around you warp and change plays into the idea of getting lost in the woods, always circling back to your campsite ties into the film franchise in a way no other developer could’ve succeeded. Sadly, these moments are on a cycle that you can see coming each and every time it rears its head, containing too much filler between them and is as predictable as the story. Touching on themes such as PTSD and survivor’s guilt, it’s an emotional story that is written well, but executed poorly due to subpar voiceovers. Ellis and the other main characters show little emotion and ham it up during the opening segments so much when they do eventually show up to the party, it’s a wash and already on a steady downhill spiral.

Clocking in less than five hours, the horror elements fail to impress until the final act, which again, includes an antagonist that is ripped frame for frame from Outlast 2, in both appearance and attacks. Much like the films that inspired it, you really don’t see much and the tension is built by the feeling of loneliness, which is present to the point that it allows boredom to house the area that suspense should live. Even with multiple endings being offered (along with the normal collectible hunting), I don’t see myself returning to the game for quite a while, if at all.

At the end of the day, Blair Witch is a horror game that will be divisive, much like the films. If you found the films to be terrifying, you’ll likely find a lot to love here, even though the title doesn’t make the most of the lore or characters. As a standalone horror experience for those us who expect more, it’s not that great. If you subscribe to Game Pass, it’s not a complete waste of bandwidth, but I wouldn’t recommend paying more than half the retail price.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Bullet is an Amazing Virtual Companion
• Environmental Changes Bloober Team is Known For
• Slick Visuals…

Cons

• …When the Game is Still
• Tons of Bugs/Popping Issues
• Subpar Voice Work
• The Pacing and Horror Themes are Exaggerated

Blair Witch was developed by Bloober Team and published by Lionsgate Games. It is available on NS, PC, PS4, and X1. The game was not provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Blair Witch, check out the game’s official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. However, for Review Rewind, we will sometimes skip the score and focus on the written content. These are typically for games that came out a while ago and we paid for ourselves – sometimes they’ve been in the queue for a while, and other times they’ve just been lost to time. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

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