When I first watched the trailer for The Chant, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Initially, I felt like it was going to be akin to Supermassives’ Dark Pictures Anthology series, aside from brief snippets that alluded to it being more of a standard survival horror game. After spending a few hours with the title, I can confirm that it falls somewhere in the middle, a place where it firmly plants its feet into the ground and holds firm in pretty much every area. This is hands down one of the most aggressively middle-of-the-road games I have ever played; that is, until it takes an abrupt nosedive off a cliff. But we’ll get to that later.

The Chant centers on a retreat on a remote island where people pay top dollar to go to relax and center themselves, which in reality is more like joining a cult. Everyone wears the same white robes, shoes are not allowed, and everyone worships a leader who kind of looks like an autistic Jesus who has all of the charisma of a rotten potato. You play as Jess, who is looking to heal some trauma that is hinted at briefly, as well as reconnect with her friend who is already an established member of the cult… er… I mean, the resort. Soon into her stay, a ritual goes sideways and the island is plunged into some sort of Otherworld, which feels like a mashup of Silent Hill and the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

The gameplay is varied enough, but sadly, the working pieces all feel disjointed and never quite sticks the landing. A large portion of the time I spent with this felt like the previously mentioned Dark Pictures titles where you’re interacting with longer than average cinematics.  There are some dialogue options with singular adjectives to give you cues as to how you’d respond, but these are few and far between, and usually just there to keep you from falling asleep. Making matters worse, not one of the characters is someone I would consider likable – everyone is a cliche from the typical horror tropes. You’ve got the obvious Final Girl you play as who has her own set of issues we’ll get to later, her catty friend who clearly holds some deep seeded issues with her, the douchebag who is looking to profit from the resort, the girl who is clearly banging the leader, and then someone who is higher than the interest rates on my student loans. I did not like or relate to any of them and really just wanted everyone to die. Quickly and as violently as possible.

Occasionally, you’ll be faced with some chase scenes where you just sprint (I am using this term loosely) through linear paths, avoiding enemies and ducking/weaving around foliage and such. This could have been one of the stronger aspects of the action, but since Jess’ standard speed is a slow walk and runs like an obese smoker after a few flights of stairs, it doesn’t really add anything to the game outside of padding a relatively short run time and creating a few weird transitions. These are not limited to just these areas, but become frequent and are quite jarring, often jumping in and out of cut scenes at a staggering pace, with scripted elements popping in at the last second.

When you’re not jogging for your life or sailing through cut scenes, you will be free to explore small segments of the island at a time, solving some barebones puzzles and choosing whether you go into fight or flight mode. While there are some nooks and crannies to search for the litany of collectibles, it is a very linear experience throughout – luckily, this makes the standard survival horror backtracking less annoying. The combat is reminiscent of that found in Hellblade, which I absolutely hated. Here you have three separate health bars, each representing different aspects of Jess’ health, and if anyone of them drops to zero, she either dies or goes insane briefly, which is essentially the screen going bonkers for a bit and removing any ability to attack. This is by far the worst aspect and should have been left on the cutting room floor for a few reasons; the major one being Jess is afraid of flies. We’re talking going into full-blown panic attack mode, and not because of Bloatflies or some sort of mutant insect ripped from the world of Resident Evil… These are normal, everyday house flies. This didn’t instill any confidence in her being a worthy fighter whatsoever. Luckily, she is equipped with sage, essential oils, and salt like she’s the third Redfield named Karen whom they never talked about before. Each of these has to be crafted from limited resources and briefly took me back to the days of true survival horror where inventory management really mattered. However, it became frustrating because there are some enemies you absolutely have to dispatch to acquire a key or puzzle item, but the game gives you no guidance in what has to be killed and what can be avoided. When you are forced into battle, it’s the typical attack, dodge, and occasionally mash A because something has stunned you, leaving a large section of thick lines circling your head that I can only compare to when Charlie Brown and friends get angry. These often result in you getting pushed out of the bounds of the game or locked into some frozen animation until you keel over dead with blood awkwardly spurting out of your nose in a torrent that would make more sense if it came from a garden hose.

The visual inconsistencies, as well as other bugs, are a theme that you cannot escape. For the most part, the game looks outstanding when looking at single frames due to the detail – it’s possible to see every single pore on a character’s face, but in other scenes, they look like they have used all of the Snapchat filters ever all at once. Lip syncing is off constantly, and hair usually looks like it has a mind of its own, jutting through the characters like they are being stabbed by their own hair follicles. These issues, as well as some that are never mentioned, were included in the reviewer’s guide provided to me, but as of this writing have still not been patched. Despite the fact I really did want to try to finish this title out, especially since it began gaining steam late into the third act, one of the bugs prevented me from completing the game. I was tasked with repairing a windmill, which was pretty straightforward and required me to find a missing gear and lever. Upon replacing both pieces, the lever simply disappears leaving me with an empty box where these should live (see above image). I have tried resetting the checkpoint, repeating the entire chapter, and doing a fresh install on my Series S in addition to the Series X I played the rest of the game on, and nothing has remedied it.

As far as horror games go, the most terrifying aspect of The Chant is how broken the end result really is. As a freshman release, it’s a strong one, but it definitely needed some additional polish to be something even remotely playable. As it stands, I would recommend a deep discount before joining this cult, at least until they even out the anti-freeze from the Kool-Aid.

5 out of 10

Pros

• Highly Detailed Visuals
• Nails Some of The Survival Horror Themes of Yesterday

Cons

• Terribly Buggy
• Unlikeable Characters
• Visually Inconsistent
• Tedious Combat

The Chant was developed by Brass Token and published by Prime Matter. The game is available on PC, PS5 and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of The Chant, check out the official site.

 

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