Hounded by nightmarish apparitions, you must uncover the truth of what occurred in the abandoned town of Dormont and pass judgment on the guilty.
Those Who Remain
Developer: Camel 101
Price: $20
Platforms: PC (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
When a game begins with its protagonist lamenting his mistakes, you might expect the now-familiar formula of psychological horror that turns out to be merely a metaphor for the character facing his past. While there’s an element of that, however, there’s much more going on in Those Who Remain. Something dark has awoken in the town of Dormont, and you’ve been chosen to unravel the truth–and pass judgment.
Early on, you’re warned to stay in the light, and this becomes a key part of survival. Shadowy figures lurk in the darkness, waiting to kill you if you venture too close. It never falls back on plunging you into darkness as a cheap scare, but rather uses this aspect to serve both its gameplay and atmosphere. It’s often an obstacle to block you from accessing certain areas until you solve a puzzle, but it also creates a decidedly creepy effect–especially when all you can see are glowing eyes watching you.
While these enemies serve as a passive threat, not attacking unless you step into the darkness, there are other dangers in Dormont as well. A stalker enemy appears from time to time, forcing you to avoid its patrols and sneak around it, and occasional chase sequences send you racing through shifting hallways in search of a way to escape. Although you can’t fight back, Those Who Remain has enough variety in its monsters to keep from feeling repetitive and keep the player on edge. Checkpoints are placed frequently enough to avoid too much frustration, although if you’ve explored an area thoroughly before encountering an enemy, dying might make you feel as though you’ve lost more progress than you actually have.
In each area, you’ll need to explore and solve puzzles to get through safely. Some puzzles are as simple as finding keys or casting light into an area to make it accessible, but there are some riddle-like puzzles as well. Unfortunately, when a game gives you many things to interact with but only a few things to actually find, you might find yourself opening dozens of empty drawers and lifting countless random objects in order to find the one note or item you need. Additional notes or commentary from the protagonist would have made these searches more rewarding.
Many puzzles also make use of an alternate world, a twisted, distorted version of Dormont that influences the real world and follows different rules. You’ll often need to cross back and forth between the two in order to solve puzzles, but other times you’re forced into it until you find the way out. It has a grim, eerie beauty that feeds into the game’s unsettling atmosphere and is one of many things that reminded me of Silent Hill, much to my delight.
As you explore, you’ll find notes and encounter apparitions that shed light on the terrible events that led to the current state of Dormont. A girl was killed and her death covered up, and now it’s fallen on you to pass judgment on the people involved. Once you find enough clues about what each person did and why they did it, you’re presented with a choice: will you forgive them, or will you condemn their soul? The situation isn’t always clear-cut, and it casts a grim light on how good people can be driven to do terrible things.
Certain choices you make during the game determine your ending. There are only three different endings, which is disappointing when there are so many decisions along the way. The game presents these situations as though you should cast judgment on a case-by-case basis, but the endings don’t allow for that level of nuance. Since the game relies solely on auto-saves, this also means you’ll need to replay the entire game to get different endings, although subsequent playthroughs should be much faster than the 9 hours it took me my first time through.
Overall, while Those Who Remain has a few frustrating aspects and relies a bit too much on conveniently teleporting the protagonist to the next place he needs to be, it’s a solid horror game. The story was dark, the monsters were scary, and I enjoyed my time in Dormont from start to finish.
The Final Word
Dark, disturbing, and intense, Those Who Remain might not be a perfect game, but it’s one horror fans shouldn’t sleep on.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
