Welcome back to the Should You Play series where we talk about games old and new. It’s Halloween week and it’s fitting to talk about some spooky games. Today I will talk about Blair Witch, its pros and cons, and whether you should play it or not.
Previously on Should you play? I talked about-
Welcome To The Woods
Blair Witch is a first-person psychological horror game. For the uninitiated, psychological horror is quite different from traditional horror. Here, the horror plays on your fear of the supernatural and your own demons rather than traditional ghostly figures. Scope wise, the game is very much like Hellblade: Senua Sacrifice in that it is a short and linear half-priced game made by a small team of developers.
The Story
Blair Witch’s story is really simple and straightforward. You play as Ellis, a retired army veteran who goes to the forest in search of a missing boy. The game starts with you exploring the forest and collecting clues that progress the story further. Soon it devolves into a haunted affair as paranormal things start happening to you.
There are only a handful of characters in the story, but Ellis remains the focus. His backstory is shrouded in mystery and gradually opens up over the course of the game. This is done through the use of calls, notes, Ellis’ fears, and memories.
The writing is pretty good for the most part. The characters feel thoughtfully realized and honestly written.
The Gameplay
The core gameplay of Blair Witch revolves mostly around exploration and a few stealth encounters. The mechanics aren’t exceptional themselves but combine that with the silent forest; the game manages to make the mere act of walking rewarding and engaging.
You also have a dog, Bullet to aid you in your journey. This companionship is crucial as it leads to some strong moments about friendship. The developers did an excellent job of having the dog play a crucial role in enemy encounters. You need to stay close to the dog if you don’t want to get hit. The game also draws inspiration from the like of The Last Guardian as your behaviour with the dog will affect his responsiveness to your commands. You can call your dog, pet him, reprimand him, and the likes. In my playthrough, I didn’t interact much with the dog except petting him a couple of times and the responses were instant, but your mileage may vary.
The Horrors Of Blair Witch
The game is mostly psychological horror with a few traditional jumps scares and ghostly encounters put in for good measure. The game’s main hook is the tapes. These tapes can be found at specific points in the game and when paused at specific moments, some changes occur to the environments. This feels spooky at first but as you progress, the novelty wears off pretty quickly as the changes and crucial moments become more and more predictable.
One more trick the game has up its sleeves is its looping levels. At some points in the game, you would follow a path and end up back to the start with a few changes to the location. This feels a bit mishandled as the character would give feedback whenever this happens by saying things like, “Are we running around in circles?”. I know this is to give players a sense of direction without compromising on the minimalist HUD elements, but we can surely do something a bit more interesting.
Great psychological horror is one that slowly and steadily creeps up on you. Blair Witch shows off some great potential, but the former feedback constantly kept me from getting out of the terrified state. Since the game is so much about self-doubt and personal fears, the embodiment of a pre-determined character like Ellis just didn’t cut it for me. I was constantly reminded that these fears and nightmares were Ellis’, not mine.
Ghostly Encounters And Pacing
Blair Witch doesn’t have any combat sequences whatsoever. You almost never get a weapon and face these ghosts head-on. Instead, there are two types of encounters – stealth and dodging.
The dodging encounters are pretty simplistic and random. The basic premise is that the witches(or ghosts) will try to attack you from all possible locations and you have to well, dodge them.
During these encounters, your best bet is to stay on the move and remain close to the dog at all times. For your stealth encounters, you have to sneak past some ghosts. These encounters require you to maintain your distance and never be in the line of sight of these ghosts.
There is no depth or skill present in these things and ultimately serves to shake up the gameplay whenever it becomes too dull.
The game is a short one and took me around 6-7 hours to beat. Blair Witch mixes up its elements well, for the most part, to keep gameplay engaging. However, it can stumble a lot in some areas. One of the late-game chapters required me to carry my dog through a valley while fog filled the screen.
There isn’t anything interesting about holding W for 10 -15 minutes while the game loads up a cutscene for you. Similarly, the final chapter becomes a slog through claustrophobic environments that all look the same.
The Visuals
The forest itself looks gorgeous and expansive but isn’t so. It is a pretty linear playground with pathways laid down to aid the player. This isn’t bad considering the game doesn’t hold your hand and exploration requires you to find specific items that would otherwise be difficult.
The animations and character models also look rich and detailed. The characters seem to have a lot more weight to them. Sometimes, however, the experience is broken when animations or the game world bugs out. There was an instance when the dog digs out something from the ground and the mud magically disappears.
This may sound nitpicking but this hinders the otherwise photorealistic presentation. There was one more instance of the game bugging out on me when my rail cart crashed into the air. The cart refused to move and I could walk on air. Stuff like is thankfully rare and fixes with a quick reload.
The Verdict
Blair Witch is a short and thrilling story about facing your fears. It tries to deal with sensitive topics such as PTSD and anxiety. There isn’t anything much in the name of combat but it still manages to keep you hooked until the end credits.
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