Unholy is an upcoming first-person psychological horror experience from Duality Games and HOOK. The game follows a grieving mother named Dorothea Linde as she navigates between two worlds in search of her missing son. Next week, on June 12, the game will get a playable Steam demo to give players a taste of what’s to come. We were lucky enough to get early access to preview the game and, after spending roughly an hour with it, this is what I think of the game so far.
The demo cuts across the first three chapters of the game and in doing so it lends a good look at the game’s atmosphere and puzzles. While I did get to play through a bit of the opening setup, it’s really not enough to determine the quality of the narrative itself. Given the fact that the time jumps in the demo often leave out much of the story, using text screens to vaguely fill in the blanks, it’s hard to draw too many conclusions. The presentation of that narrative, however, I can speak to and it’s very strong. The game often presents beautiful scenery and striking visuals that kept me tapping the F12 button to take screenshots. I can also say that the glimpses at narrative we did get in this preview are good and the demo as a whole did manage to hook me. Pun intended.
For horror fans, Unholy is akin to a game like Layers of Fear, a slow burner with dark subject matter and gameplay that centers around puzzle-solving. In that regard, Unholy takes notes well from its contemporaries and builds on them in meaningful ways. The two worlds have a distinct look and feel and they manage to have some intense moments woven in between the simple puzzles. For me, muttering things like “oh fuck” under my breath is a good sign that the horror game is succeeding, and that’s exactly what I did as I snuck my way around the levels in search of something or other. It does have cliche horror game tropes, like a child giggling and running around a corner, but those moments are followed by a tense atmosphere that really sets the stage.
The puzzles in the preview are mostly straightforward but that’s understandable because they are from the opening chapters. Like other games in the niche, most objectives require careful exploration of a given area to progress the story. Objectives are presented as Dorothea’s “thoughts” that you can read at any time to remind yourself what to do. There was one puzzle that required putting in a code on a terminal and the answer for it was by a dead body close by. And another that had me attaching a dial to a machine to overload it. The hardest of these was the last one but only because I missed the dial on my first go around.
Of course, I make it sound easier than it really was. That last puzzle is a bit too vague in my opinion and while I did eventually figure it out, it was not before dying multiple times and backtracking. You do have the option to put on a mask, something that seems to be a key mechanic in the game based on the UI, and it shows you interactable objects around the level. But more clear communication of these mechanics, preferably in a more fleshed-out tutorial format, would have been nice. By and large though, being thorough seems to be a pretty surefire way to solve the obstacles in Unholy.
When I describe the game as a slow burner, I emphasize the slow. Not only does the narrative pace feel that way, but Dorothea’s walking is literally so. Things like look speed are slow too but they can be changed in settings. Walking speed cannot and while I can understand that the slowness can let you really admire the scenery, I feel a slight boost to movement speed can go a long way.
To add to that, Unholy is one of those games where action isn’t really an option. You do have a slingshot by your side which you can use to solve certain puzzles and, later on, you do get an additional ammo type that changes the gameplay in an interesting way. Using sadness capsules as ammo, you can launch them at the ground to fog up an enemy’s vision. Apart from being cool in concept, this comes in handy for stealth, but using the slingshot on enemies, in general, won’t do much. At least not with the ammo types seen in this small slice of the game. This means that getting spotted by the roaming enemies will often lead to death and slowly making that progress again can feel like a chore if you get unlucky too many times.
Speaking of roaming enemies, I do want to talk a bit about the odd enemy AI. In the last few sections of the demo, you come across enemies that robotically search designated areas that you have to sneak through. As I said, confronting them is pointless and stealth is the way to go. Sometimes I found that enemies can unfairly spot you while you cower behind something but the big hiccup I came across was when an enemy cornered me. I don’t mean he trapped me in a room and killed me as I panicked with no way to go. He stood in front of me while I was in a literal corner and that was it. Didn’t kill me or anything. He just stood there; menacingly. I tried jumping or crawling free to no avail, and it wasn’t until I used my last slingshot ammo on him that he abruptly remembered I was there he delivered the final blow.
Overall, the Unholy demo offers a nice glimpse of what’s to come when the game releases sometime this year for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It did have its problems, mainly in the way of unclear mechanics and quirky enemy AI, and I do wish the walking speed was a bit faster, but the game has a great sense of atmosphere and an interesting narrative that guarantee the game a spot on my wishlist. You can wishlist the game now on Steam and while you’re there check out the demo, available starting June 12. Thank you to the publisher for giving us an early look at the game.
