As someone who grew up in the golden era of survival horror games, cutting my teeth on the likes of the Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Dino Crisis, and Silent Hill franchises, it is equal parts interesting and disheartening to see what has become of the horror genre in games. Fixed camera angles have morphed into the use of the Unreal Engine, resource management has devolved into a repetitive chore of hiding and seeking from your enemies, and horrific monsters have become a dime-a-dozen affair, where they all blur together into a case of where if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. It’s been a road full of a few decent highs, mostly lows, and a fair amount of mid-tier experiences. The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation is a culmination of years of trial and error from other developers, apparently taking notes of the low points and resulting in something that mostly misses those pitfalls. Mostly.
The title is based on a Taiwanese urban legend of a ghost that haunts Tunghu University, where you play as a rotating cast of friends who are either having some party, in a cult, or part of a club that researches it. I am not entirely sure which since there are thematic elements that point to each as being a possibility, and the Taiwanese-to-English translation is a bit lacking, with loads of grammatical errors as well as the lip-syncing being off for most of the game (it’s possible this was just a straight dub and there wasn’t an attempt to sync the voice-overs, so I am going to let it go). After completing a ritual of sorts, the group finds themselves at the mercy of a violent spirit who wants nothing more than to eat their faces. It was a rather cookie-cutter narrative that didn’t do anything special but was enough to keep me engaged, even if I’m not the biggest fan of how the game transitions from character to character. I really struggled with determining who I was playing as at any given time because all of the characters feature traditional Taiwanese names and kind of look the same (not making a racist joke here; the females and males almost all look identical aside from their clothing), and outside of a brief text bit during the loading screens, there’s no inkling as to whom you’ve taken over. I feel a cinematic in the vein of The Dark Pictures games would’ve helped clear this up.
The gameplay could be placed within one of three buckets, with the largest being talking with your friends in a pseudo-visual novel that features stiff conversations that often feel awkward, shifting from formal to absurdly casual at frantic paces. It was so bad at times that I burst out in uncontrollable laughter. There’s a time where my party shifted their focus from the fact a ghost was literally trying to kill them to being upset that two of them were dating behind someone else’s back. It was like being trapped in a room with my ex who had ADD and bipolar disorder. When the game isn’t talking your ear off, which is by far the largest part of the game, you’ll have to complete a small number (and by a small number, I mean four) of puzzles, with almost all of them tasking you with finding key items and putting them in their respective places. Finally, we have that hide-and-seek mechanic that is a mix of frustration and anxiety that naturally comes with the territory. These segments repeat in almost a beat-by-beat replay for four to five hours, largely through the same few areas, almost to the point you can guess where you’re heading before you even start the journey.
The hide-and-seek bits are by far the strongest – they’re almost on par with what you’d expect from the next Outlast game. Throughout the game, you’ll be stalked by a few different versions of nasty, all of which move in their own creepy way, with my personal favorite being the first iteration that walks in an unsettling Orphan Annie prance like my wife does when she feels like her hair, outfit, and makeup look outstanding. If you have a natural dislike for mannequins, you’ll also find a group of those that spin their limbs around in an unnatural way and make noises that I cannot describe but actually gave me chills the first time I heard them. It took me back to one of the best segments from the recent Resident Evil: Village expansion. There are also a few on the other end of the spooky spectrum that I couldn’t help but laugh at, such as the fellow who walks around like the titular zombie from Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse, or the final form that looks like every other creepy lady in a mediocre horror game from the last decade. The one thing that really held this back from being a perfect example of the mechanic was how bad the AI is at times. Early in, it’s simple – the ghost chases you, you run, if you get blocked in, you can hide and wait for a few, and then proceed. But around the midway point you will have to start focusing more on being stealthy as opposed to quick, and then in many cases follow a very specific path that causes an otherworldly force to move something right in your way, requiring you to backtrack while avoiding what is chasing you. Your stalker also has a nasty habit of pulling you out of your hiding spot when they reasonably shouldn’t have been able to. Oh, and they have shortcuts by way of tall patches of grass that you can’t go through because… reasons I guess. I really wish I would’ve had some of those during my time with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
This is easily one of the best-looking horror games using Unreal Engine 4, and while it does have hints of assets we’ve seen before, the world was lifelike enough to keep my attention. I was giddy when I noticed that my most hated feature, the dreaded floating object, wasn’t present as you can usually look down and at a minimum see your hands. There were occasional blips that would ruin the immersion, like some of the characters’ clothing stuttering or shift in a weird way, a strange pile of shit (literally. I would tell the dude to see a doctor if he didn’t turn into hamburger), and a lack of proper English localization, but otherwise, it was a beautiful world to explore. The only thing I could really complain about consistently was the fog, which just makes everything look washed out opposed to transporting me to a world like Silent Hill. I just wish there was more to do. You can search for some collectibles, but outside of those and the required bits and pieces you need to progress the story, the world isn’t very interactive. You can’t even control your flashlight, which the enemies completely ignore, as it is always on unless the story deems it unnecessary. It really left me wanting more. Not just here, but with the horror as well.
The horror elements are present, mostly by way of tension in the empty campus as you explore it with occasional freaky flashes of ghosts, moving objects, and the like. There is almost a complete absence of jump scares, unless you happen to wander around the wrong corner while being stalked. There are also quite a few moments that really shined through here, but they were few and far between. Since there really are so few, I don’t want to focus on them too much in an effort to avoid spoilers, but they exist. Eventually. I promise. I just wish there was a heavier focus on this instead of the banter between the students, but that’s just me. Softstar Entertaining put great care into mimicking Bloober Team’s best feature in terms of the world shifting around you in real-time, but it was only for one all too brief chase scene.
It’s no Silent Hill, but The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation is easily one of the better indie horror games of the past decade. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, has a decent narrative, and has some genuine horror bits if you’re willing to put in the work. I would even argue that Softstar Entertainment would’ve been a better choice to remake Silent Hill 2 after jumping into my first entry from them.
8 out of 10
Pros
- Exceptional Visuals
- Creepy Atmosphere
- Unique Antagonist Movements
Cons
- Fog Doesn’t Work
- Lack of Interactive Bits
- Some Wonky AI
The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation was developed by Softstar Entertainment and published by Softstar Entertainment, Gamera Games, and eastasiasoft. It launched on NS, PC, PS4, PS5, X1 and XSX/S. The game was provided to us for review on PS5. If you’d like to see more of The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation, check out the publisher’s site.
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