As a general rule, I try to avoid looking at other reviews for games we receive prior to completing my own review; however, there are times when we get our review copies a little later than other outlets. As a consumer, if something speaks to me I will try to make an educated purchase and of course, look at reviews and gameplay. Stray Souls is one of those situations where we were issued a code a few days after release, and prior to getting this code, I was already fully aware it was getting decimated by just about every channel on the internet. This resulted in me going in with extremely low expectations and for a while, it actually exceeded those expectations. If you read my ramblings, you probably know I am a huge Silent Hill fan. It’s easily my favorite franchise in all of gaming, and also one that I have a love/hate relationship with due to how Konami has treated its fans. It’s been over a decade since we’ve had a proper release in the series and even longer since an outstanding release has seen the light of day. For the first 2/3 of this game, it actually felt like it was one of the better post-Team Silent releases in the series. At least, if you squint and play a bit of pretend.

Stray Souls follows a young man named Daniel who inherits a home from his long-lost biological grandmother a few days before his eighteenth birthday. After connecting with a neighbor that holds her own secrets which are later explored, Daniel learns that his grandmother wasn’t exactly Betty White and that not everything is as it seems. Before long, Granny is back, peeking around corners, dragging him through the house at random, and just generally being a dirty old crone. A dirty old crone who looks a lot like Beavis wearing a stringy grey wig. Despite looking somewhat ridiculous, this was actually one of the highest points of the game and set it off on the right foot. Once escaping, Daniel and the mysterious neighbor set off to unravel his past, and solve whatever is plaguing him and threatening the world. It’s essentially a mish-mash of every Silent Hill game made up to this point.

This is yet another game that suffers greatly from a lack of polish and weird design choices. Most survival horror games have a bit of jank or cheese to them, so I was able to overlook a lot of things, like how Daniel’s emotions and statements change rapidly like he has bipolar disorder along with Tourette’s syndrome due to his constant facial tics. The lips are also out of sync, and the character models are jerky and stiff, which actually come across as a positive in some areas since they add a level of creepiness to the enemies. There is also some “Jill Sandwich” level cringe writing, such as “Have some fucking birthday cake,” which is the weirdest way to tell someone to eat your ass I’ve ever heard, and something I fully intend on working into my repertoire of insults in Call of Duty lobbies.

What I couldn’t overlook was how bad some of the animations really are, or more so, how much they are missing. Some of the enemies will just disappear and leave behind a puddle of blood upon death, and the same goes for Daniel when he dies. Sometimes there is a generic motion where he ragdolls and falls over, but more often he just stops moving and the screen fades to black. This isn’t limited to this area, as there are plenty of other cut scenes where actions just look incomplete or unfinished, such as during the opening when a man blows away members of his family with a shotgun, and while blood splatters as it would reasonably do in this situation, there is no damage taken on the character models. In addition to these, you’ll also notice tons of jagged edges, invisible walls, clipping, tearing, and every other visual bug you can imagine being in a video game represented here.

The gameplay is split between exploration, barebones puzzles, and combat, none of which are particularly done well. Even though the areas are packed with little nooks and crannies that you’d normally want to explore, the game limits you to doing exactly what the narrative wants you to do and nothing more. If you find some ammo and have the available inventory, you can note where it is, but Daniel will just make the same comment ad nauseum that he doesn’t need it. There is also no map at all for any of the areas, which makes exploring some of the more open levels troublesome. I would’ve loved to even have a static map with a “You are here” X at minimum, because some of the areas are so similar that most of my playtime was dumped into being lost. There are a ton of narrative-based events that are usually triggered by entering the right area, however, the points of the world where they are triggered are extremely wonky. Early into the game you’re tasked with fixing a clock, which is easy to find and left me wandering around after it never gave me a cue to interact with it, only triggering once I went up into the attic and came back down, kicking the game forward into a cut scene by hitting the steps at a weird angle. The puzzles are extremely bland and are either easily solved by trial and error, or the solution is sitting in plain sight three digital feet to your left.

Combat is rarely what I would consider to be great, or even good in survival horror games. This usually hinges on resource management and controlling an everyman of sorts who isn’t a well trained combat vet. Daniel is essentially still a child who makes it a point to mention he’s never even held a gun, which quickly evolves into him plugging shots into the monsters with a level of precision that I found kind of unbelievable, but I guess it’s better than dealing with Deputy Doofy from Scary Movie. The problems here are a bit varied, with the most egregious being that there is only a single weapon (a pistol that looks like a gold Desert Eagle) that seems to have some mystical power that the cult and it’s minions seem to really, really hate. This is your only form of defense outside of a roll ability that is mostly unneeded and features a meager ammo capacity of about 30 bullets at any given time. The only thing survival wise this encourages is memorizing where the health and ammo pickups are since you cannot bank health kits, only using them from walls, and can only pick up ammo right before or after the combat segments and never when exploring. It doesn’t ask much to find more ammo, since they are literally placed every few feet in a breadcrumb trail way that leads you along the path the developers intended. The biggest challenge is finding enough time to throw open the tackle box that houses ammo in a dramatic, overly delayed way, like I was back in Fable opening a chest.

Instead of enemies roaming freely and attacking in a dynamic way, combat is typically limited to being an objective of sorts, requiring you to kill every enemy in the area to proceed. There are a handful of different creatures outside of the previously mentioned grandma, some of which look outstanding, like the fast spider-finger creature that looks like someone took a mini-version of the spider-hands from Elden Ring and attached it to the body of a wretch from Gears of War, or the guy who looks like you took someone wearing one of those inflatable mount Halloween costumes and shoved him inside of an inside-out human… or just an inside out human with a gigantic penis that shoots black goo out of it. You decide. Others look like skinned humans, some with additional appendages and others with none at all, that really didn’t do much for me.

There are a few boss battles to complete, none of which are particular thrilling, with the last one being downright laughable. I have finished the conclusion of this game twice to get two of the three endings, and during both of them the final boss merged into the wall during the second phase and never left, with it’s ass sticking out of a wall like some weird nightmarish chaps. I literally stood in place shooting it in the rectum for about four minutes, only stopping to aquire more ammo. It dies, the cut scene plays, and then you are offered three options that determine the outcome of the story, which just kind of ends. It feels like there was another chapter here and is just missing. I was going to go for the third ending, but I didn’t have it in me when I could just as easily watch it on YouTube in a fraction of the time. The other two fights are a little more involved, but just barely, and are easily completed by running as far away as possible, taking pot shots from a distance, refilling ammo, and repeating.

From a replay perspective, there isn’t much to do outside of finding the collectible notes unless you’re a trophy/achievement completionist. There are a few fun gameplay-specific objectives to do if you choose, such as completing the game in under two and a half hours or not getting hit, but it’s kind of a slog in the last third of the game, by passing the fun-bad territory and going straight into painfully bad. I actually feel kind of bad saying this, because under the surface you can see hints of a solid horror game. With some major updates this could evolve into something not just playable, but dare I say decent. Unfortunately, we review games as they are when they are played here, not how they will be by the end of their lifespan.

The story was the main driver for me to complete this game outside of it being received for review, as I generally will try to finish every game I receive, but by the end of it, I really didn’t care anymore. Daniel wasn’t the most thrilling of protagonists and his story doesn’t even receive a proper conclusion in any of the endings, just a half hearted attempt at setting up a sequel. His personality comes across as whiney and cringey in a “I hate teenagers” kind of way, and he looks like you stuck The Walking Dead‘s Jon Bernthal’s head on a teenage girl, skinny jeans and all. I was left with more questions, none of which are explained by the end of it. Where were the other humans? You never see a single other living being outside of the neighbor and grandma, which I am not really sure she qualifies. What are the monsters? Why has no one managed to make cauliflower taste like Reese’s Cups?

In the Silent Hill fan community, most of the post Team Silent games are shit on regularly and looked at like bastard children. I personally loved most of the entries, even if they lacked that spark that made the originals so damn satisfying. Initially, this felt like one of the best Western developed games in the series without the name attached, but by the time the credits rolled, I would say Stray Souls is only beaten out by how bad Shattered Memories was.

4 out of 10

Pros

• Some Genuinely Creepy Creatures
• Early Areas are Reminiscent of When Silent Hill was Still a Somewhat Relevant Franchise
• Offers Some Fun Survival Horror Style Jank and Cheese

Cons

• Bugs for Days
• Lacking Most of the Tried and True Survival Horror Mechanics
• Only One Weapon
• Weak Endings

Stray Souls was developed by Jukai Studio and published by Versus Evil. The game launched on PC, PS4, PS5, X1, and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on PS5. If you’d like to see more of Stray Souls, 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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