Pneumata Preview

Being both a horror game girlie and a perpetual scaredy-cat means I’m always a bit jittery from curiosity, excitement, and downright dread when I waltz a character into an abandoned asylum à la Outlast or wake up in a desolate underground like in Amnesia: The Bunker. In Pneumata's case, I’ve put on the brave boots of a detective whose desire for truth leads him into the blood-soaked halls of Clover Hill, an asylum where tenants have gone missing and mutant enemies lurk in the shadows. During this brief preview, I’ve only explored the complex’s Detention Centre, but I’m already wondering what kinds of horrific truths Deadbolt Interactive has woven into the rest of this terrifying place.

The preview drops us in around the 60% mark of the game, and you can feel Pneumata’s sinister atmosphere from the get-go. I spent my first moments in the Detention Centre just listening to eerie music and various industrial clanks, hums, and creaks. Adding to the tension are plenty of flickering lights, blood-stained walls, and a very subtle yet disorienting camera shake. With the soundscape and visuals working together, it’s like you’ve stepped into a nightmare, but unfortunately for our detective protagonist, this isn’t a dream.

After looting a weaponry cabinet and arming myself with a shotgun, pistol, baseball bat, and plenty of ammo, it’s not long before the preview makes good on its scary vibes, putting me face-to-face with an enemy that looks sort of like a mutated pig. I take it down with a single shot, but the spider that emerges from its body catches me by surprise — I admit I whiffed a couple of shots just out of panic. For those who have arachnophobia, I should warn you that spiders do make frequent appearances throughout the rest of the preview, too, so that’s definitely something to consider.

Pneumata’s other enemies range from slow-moving, almost zombie-like beings (that still look somewhat human) to quick, more monstrous-looking ones, which tend to jumpscare you from behind locked doors. Just looking at them is enough to make me grimace, but they always go down within a reasonable number of hits. Gunplay is pretty smooth overall, as you can take down enemies with a good amount of accuracy from afar, and there doesn’t seem to be a dropoff in damage even if you’re on the other side of the room. But just as easily as your bullets find their target, your foes will also be drawn to you like magnets, which can sometimes feel unrealistic. In other games, you might be able to run and hide after being spotted, but it seemed that no matter how far I ran away, I couldn’t shed the gravity that pulled every enemy to me despite losing their line of sight multiple times.

That said, I had the most trouble dealing with the aforementioned spiders, as it’s easy to get overwhelmed by them, and their hitboxes can be hard to find even with a baseball bat or rusty pipe at your disposal. Your melee weapons do break after prolonged use, so you’ll want to be smart about how often you use them. It also seems that the game pushes you to utilise your entire toolkit, as hitting some enemies in melee range will burst sacs on their bodies, dealing damage if you’re close enough. You’ll even find these fluid-filled sacs as environmental threats on walls and ceilings, which will explode if you step too close to them.

If you’re a fan of the horror genre, you’ll be right at home with the game’s puzzles and obstacles as well. It’s a lot of your standard challenges, from finding door codes and keys in order to explore more of the centre or searching for explosives to make your own way out (very reminiscent of The Bunker). Pneumata also feels specifically like Resident Evil in a lot of ways, as it employs a similar grid-like inventory system and shows you a percentage of your health status whenever you pull up your bag. Its resource management and crafting system functions much the same as well with item combinations being made directly in your inventory, such as combining cloth and alcohol to make bandages. Any leftover items can be stored in a separate storage right next to the various save points you find in the asylum.

This preview gave me a taste of Pneumata’s spooky vibes, puzzle-solving, and gunplay more than its story. While there were audio logs and terminal messages to read, its world is still shrouded in a lot of mystery, so it’ll be interesting to see where the narrative takes us. Overall, Deadbolt Interactive nailed the atmosphere of the Detention Centre, and judging by the game’s screenshots and trailers, I’m sure we can expect that same terrifying tension in other areas of Clover Hill.

Pneumata is slated for a Q2 2024 release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG.