In case you didn’t know, I freaking love my wife. I don’t mean that in the cookie cutter, Hallmark greeting card definition of the word, I truly live for her – she’s my single reason for not being a piece of human garbage and waking up each and every morning being thankful I’m alive. With this being said, the story that Stifled immerses the player in really struck a chord with me.

You play as David, a character that is slowly losing his mind due to a traumatic event that you will explore through a series of memories; let’s face it, no relationship, marriage or otherwise, is perfect all of the time. The game places you in the home of the protagonist as you follow his wife downstairs into the kitchen, only to have her disappear right in front of you. This alone sent shivers down my spine, as this is literally my nightmare painted on a virtual canvas and it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. The loss of a loved one has been a common theme in storytelling for decades, with many games sharing a similar tone, but I haven’t felt this invested in finding the missing spouse since Silent Hill 2. The journey you embark on to seek out your missing wife is the main selling point of Stifled, which is highly immersive and well worth the cost of admission, so I won’t touch on it anymore to avoid spoilers.

The game is a VR title but can be played on a standard TV, which was the sole method this was played for review. Our protagonist is visually challenged, and much like the recent title Perception, you will use sound to create an echo effect to view the world, which will slowly disappear as time progresses. I preferred the black and contrasting colors featured in this opposed to Perception’s take. The kicker is that creating sound will not only paint the picture of the game world for you, but will make you visible to the enemies that wander about the environments. If one additional peripheral option wasn’t enough for you, you can use a microphone to use your voice or ambient sound to generate noise as needed, with a controller being an alternative if you prefer to not scream at your TV like a madman. This is something we’ve seen before in titles such as Alien: Isolation or Manhunt, but works splendidly to create a true sense of dread, and works much better in this title than in previous attempts at the mechanic.

As far as horror titles go, most rely on jump scares, exclusively or otherwise. No matter how well placed or animated, they are getting to the point that they are stale and nothing but a cheap scare. Stifled uses absolutely none of these, outside of the occasions that you happen to stumble upon one of the adversaries that inhabit the game world at the wrong time, which I only experienced once during my playthrough. The true terror comes from what you don’t see and instead hear, which is pretty much everything. The sound design is spot on, even when using the standard speakers from my mid-grade TV.

There are a total of three enemy beings you will encounter on your journey, with the second, a set of twins, being the most troublesome. Sadly, the game suffers with misplaced checkpoints, leaving this portion of the game to be a bit of a slog, ruining what would otherwise be an amazing horror game rivaled only by the genre heavyweights like Resident Evil 7 or Outlast. I found myself terrified of making too much noise and ebbing my way through the encounter as slowly as possible, only to fail even when being completely silent. Honestly, had I not been so invested in the story, I would’ve given up at this point.

At its heart, this is yet another walking simulator, with most of the gameplay requiring you to explore the game world, interact with specific items, and evade the enemies I previously mentioned. It can be completed in just a few short hours, and I don’t foresee myself wanting to jump back into it unless I acquire a VR headset. If you have a VR headset (I can only imagine this being one of the more engaging titles on the market) or are a fan of horror titles in general, you have no excuse to not purchase Stifled immediately.

9 out of 10

Pros

• Use of Sound to Produce Visuals
• Amazing Story
• Microphone Mechanic Actually Works

Cons

• Lack of Proper Checkpoints During More Taxing Segments

Stifled was developed and published by Gattai Games. It is available on the PC and PS4 for $19.99. The review code for PS4 was provided to us. If you’d like to see more of Stifled, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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