The Complex Tragedy Review

In The Complex Tragedy, I’m dropped into a dark, stormy night, and I know right away that I’m walking toward nothing good. With a flashlight in hand, I disregard panicked notes I find about the storm, and of course, I pay no attention to the warning signs lining the entrance to the sewer tunnels I’m supposed to venture into. Instead, I follow in the footsteps of many protagonists from single-player horror games, barging straight into a place that reeks of danger, death, and torment.

Abandoned buildings never fail to give me the creeps, but the setting of The Complex Tragedy is much more than just a building. The walls of the titular Complex enclose a massive city complete with a school, chapel, psychiatric ward, residential spaces, market centre, and more. It seems endless as you navigate floor after floor, and oftentimes, it’s disorienting, as the environment changes on a dime and unsettling beings appear from nothing. From the blood-lined walls to the eerie soundscape, the atmosphere is both foreboding and strange all the way through.

The goal is to uncover the gruesome past and secrets of this building/city, discovering why the government eventually decided to evacuate this place and seal it off from the rest of the world. You’ll piece everything together through written notes, newspaper reports, and terminal messages from previous residents and workers of the Complex. The writing isn’t the best at times, as many notes sound like they were written by the same individual, making it difficult to distinguish the characters from one another. Even so, they do paint the picture of a society beginning to crumble. And while the writing might fall short, you can tell the lore is well thought out. Even the loading screens serve as story tidbits, giving you background about how the city got its food or what happened in the event that residents wanted to leave.

When it comes to gameplay, you’ll find yourself activating electrical generators, along with finding keys and passcodes, requiring you to investigate the nooks and crannies of the building, from a school principal’s office to secret passageways. This ultimately leads to plenty of jumpscares, which are quite abundant in this short title. Unfortunately, most of them were hit or miss for me. Some definitely made me jump, staying true to their name. Others I could’ve done without, as several got repetitive and some came with an overwhelming amount of flickering lights. If you’re sensitive to flashing images, this might not be the best pick for you.

That said, The Complex Tragedy excels at making its monsters and enemies threatening; if they catch you, it’s an instant kill, and all you can do is try to evade them. The inability to fight back when a mysterious figure is running straight at me always manages to scare me more than jumpscares do. However, this does mean you end up redoing sections, which can begin to feel more annoying than frightening, and the autosave points aren’t always the best.

For a game that runs a little over an hour, The Complex Tragedy feels like a larger game with a deeper story than I expected and a setting that seems like it could go on forever. While some of the jumpscares and writing fall short, you’ll still have a good, unsettling time navigating the abandoned halls of the Complex.