Every single time I see a new horror trailer and see taglines that rant and rave about how (insert your favorite token horror adjective here) it is, I silently roll my eyes knowing these are the ones that generally end up being the tamest experiences which equate to a midsummer PG-13 horror film that is meant to draw in the typical teenager for some cheap jump scares and little else. Visage has been on my radar since its early announcement, following the purging of P.T., and this started along the same path as those games that came before it. However, Visage is the real deal, and for better or worse, is the most terrifying bit of media I have consumed in my adult life.

From its downright shocking opening to the end of the credits, this is an all-out assault on your sanity, patience, and senses that will test you every chance it gets. The opening is something I really want to talk about, but feel it is best experienced alone, in the dark, and completely oblivious to what you’re getting yourself into. I will say this – I had to step away to pick my jaw up off the floor following what was one of the tensest scripted scenes that take place in a first-person environment in my 30 or so years of gaming. It pulls no punches, crosses one of the few lines I never expected a game to cross in terms of violence, and really felt like it was included for pure shock value at first. That is, until the story finally comes together at the end of the experience which is equal parts intrigue, confusion, and disappointingly predictable plot twists.

Per the usual for horror games, this is a walking sim, with a heavy and I do mean heavy focus on puzzles and inventory management. This is not an experience to sit back and enjoy with a cold drink at the end of a hard day – this is something that you’re either going to love or hate and likely, will hate until something finally clicks like a light switch within your brain. The puzzles are deliberately obtuse and heavily resemble those found in the earlier Silent Hill games, but they make sense once you finally figure out how things work in conjunction together – depending on your focus, how long it’ll take you to connect the dots will vary. Even consulting a walk-through a few times in an effort to proceed to get this review out in a timely manner, I found myself completely lost for long stretches, which eventually turned into frustration. Some of these frustrations, like the clunky way item management is handled (I wish you all the luck in the world when it comes to switching items in a time of distress), remain throughout. Even having spent close to twenty hours with this game, I couldn’t guide you through most of the inventory management tasks from memory since I generally just hit random buttons out of duress and hoped for the best thanks to most of the simplest of actions requiring a few different button presses or combinations of button prompts to be pushed in tandem.

Much like the Amnesia games, the light is your friend, and losing your sanity will result in some otherworldly beings seeking you out with a thirst for blood and you with nothing to defend yourself with and nowhere to hide. The end result is a game of tag instead of the normal hide and go seek style that so many similar entries rely on that will occasionally frustrate but always horrify you, as the ghastly beings phase in and out of view, often coming out of nowhere, chasing you at the absolute worst of times. To keep the scares fresh, these are mostly random encounters coupled with the small, less intrusive events like light bulbs breaking, the shadows that move just out of view, whispers or cries, and items moving with no rhyme or reason, resulting in an almost constant state of paranoia. The game exhibits an excellent balance here in pushing you to the edge of your seat, to the point where you’re almost ready to just stand there and let death claim you, only to pull back at the last minute and do it all over again.

The audio and visual representation is just shy of perfection, both in the quieter moments where it feels like you’re in a house inhabited by real people, or the more otherworldly aspects that would be at home in the Silent Hill or Amnesia worlds. The attention to detail in most facets is astounding, from the small messes here and there to the chips of paint where someone dinged the wall while moving furniture, it really felt like I was exploring a stranger’s home which added to the goosebumps I’d get when things started to look a little more off when the environment would shift and change in ways that would make Bloober Team take note. The way the two worlds intersect at regular intervals is just awe-inspiring and aside from being hard to navigate due to the complete omission of a map, makes for one of the most immersive horror experiences out there. The figurative icing on this cake is the way the game is almost entirely silent outside of your footsteps and the obvious things that go bump in the night aimed at making you ruin your pants.

There are a few things I would’ve liked to see in the game, mostly in the form of quality of life improvements, such as a map, a better inventory management system, and a few smaller immersion-breaking gripes that are kind of standard at this point but still annoy me. Namely that the player’s hands are missing from view and the objects just float or move on their own accord instead of actually looking like you’re interacting with them. Outside of these minor issues, the game ran almost perfectly with only a single crash on my Xbox Series X.

Visage is just short of perfection and will likely remain a personal favorite sitting next to Outlast, Amnesia, and Silent Hill. It takes clear inspiration from some of the best horror games on the market and still manages to feel fresh despite some minor design flaws. It’s a challenging experience on every level and will test you if you let it.

9 out of 10

Pros

• A Terrifyingly Almost Picture Perfect World to Explore
• Challenging On Every Level
• Highly Atmospheric
• Feels Like A Successor to P.T.
• Pushes Some Boundaries In Terms of Violence

Cons

• Floating Items
• Inventory Management
• Lack of a Proper Map
• Pushes Some Boundaries In Terms of Violence

Visage was developed and published by Sadsquare Studios. It is available on PC, PS4, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on X1, but played on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Visage, check out the official site.

 

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