Phantaruk Preview

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with horror games. I love the macabre, sublime fear that it breeds in us, but I’m also a little too weak-willed to tolerate said fear. I’ve cycled through my fair share of titles, or at least, tried to (as my 2014 Outlast stream can demonstrate). From Amnesia: Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs to the aforementioned, SOMA, The Evil Within, Silent Hill and DOOM, and despite being plunged into panic-ridden, whimpering fits, I always find myself coming back for more. In addition, thanks to an introduction to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, I have fallen back in love with the science fiction narrative genres. So when I came across Polyslash’s Phantaruk, an indie Steam title in its beta stages with an intriguing concept, ‘twas too tempting to pass up.

Getting down to business: I found that the overall graphic integrity of the game stands moderately high for what it is; nothing astounding or remarkable, but still impressive for an indie game. Phantaruk carried through a classic, gloomy atmosphere with its high definition. With rooms shrouded in the destruction that besieged them, and hungover from apparent carnage and chaos. In my first glances around I was eerily brought back to Frictional Games' SOMA, but perhaps a bit more space-y. There is really one word that ties together this game, without the developers leaning upon it: classic. Skirting the borders of cliché, they aim to veer from this path by interspersing the terror with their own intricate narrative. But it's not just the story that sets this game apart: Polyslash have taken inspiration from games like Amnesia, and in their own way approached the horror aspect from a different angle. Until you actually encounter danger, it's never made clear what exactly it is that you're up against. Not having any concept of your potential threat makes escaping it all the more terrifying.

Now I may not have the constitution for horror games, or movies, or anything relative, for that matter, the first few minutes had me at the literal edge of my literal seat. They were very hard to get through; above me rang the oppressive, monotonous drone of an alarm, breaking the silence only to tell me “you're all alone..”. Echoed by the tannoy evacuation instructions and its reminder to “avoid all contact with the infected”. And lo the scene was set. I mentioned before the intricate narrative; the game provided a pleasant respite from my jittery panic whenever I stumbled across or was perhaps lead to recorded logs. For a brief moment, I forgot about the fear and was soothed by the emotional component that gave life to the otherwise desolate halls.

While seemingly simple, there was just some indefinable essence found in the gameplay that chilled me. I felt entirely frozen, clammy grip on the controller, unable to move forward. There was no music herding me into a state of fear, no sudden slamming doors or jump-scares at this point, really there was just emptiness. I gingerly rounded every corner, opened every door and winced, expecting to be accosted. Waiting for something to go wrong, well, even more so than what was indicated by the blood smeared across the floors. It wasn't until I had amassed a false sense of security that movement began to happen. I'm 98% sure the game was aware of this. Entering another blackened area that looked like a hangar or a warehouse and reaching the centre of a suspended walkway, and the lights came on. I suddenly felt very unsafe. Supposedly the ship had been without its lights because whatever it was that kept them on had broken, right? I mean that's the most obvious conclusion when assessing the situation, so if they were, in fact, functional, why were they off? And perhaps more disturbingly, why were they now switched on? I felt an uneasy notion that this was a reaction to my presence. And then I felt even more unsafe.

The user interface and controls were fairly simple; utilising a mouse and keyboard, you could monitor your health and toxicity levels by left clicking, your inventory, objectives and information by pressing tab, crouching with ctrl and moving with WASD or the arrow keys. I have yet to discover if combat is even an option in this game. In a way I was grateful for the simplified controls, it made focusing on the gripping horror much, much easier. One issue I did encounter, however, occurred whenever I paused and then resumed playing: the camera would either insist upon panning to the floor or would incessantly spin. This massively hindered, nay outright prevented me from being able to check my peripherals and keep my wits about me. I found a temporary fix but it involved minimising the game window, waiting for about two minutes then opening it again. Hopefully, this glitch will be fixed in its full release.

Overall this is one of the more interesting and fun horror games I've played, not taking the word “horror” too seriously, yet still managing to imbue its gameplay with plenty of it. With a compelling and impressive narrative, decent graphics and easy to use controls on top of the fear, I thoroughly enjoyed what I experienced. I can't wait to push forward despite myself, if for nothing else than to uncover the story in its entirety, and tantalise myself in this new approach to terror.