I was intrigued by “DreadOut” since it was still just an IndieGoGo campaign and a dream. It seemed to offer classic survival-horror mixed with some fresh ideas. So hoping for the best but bracing for the worst, I decided to give it a try.
In “DreadOut,” the player takes the role of an Indonesian high school student named Linda. Linda and the rest of her classmates get lost while on a field trip and somehow wind up in an abandoned town. The group is forced to travel through this haunted town, seeking a way home as well as to learn why some of the students have begun to act strangely. This is one of the strong points of “DreadOut.” It has a wonderful sense of setting. As the story unfolds, it is very heavily steeped in Indonesian folklore, which is something very unique in a video game. For those of you (like me) who don’t know much about Indonesian folklore, the game handily provides a “ghostpedia” to tell you little blurbs about the various sorts of monsters and the magic associated with them; it’s not perfect but it certainly provides a great deal of help.
“DreadOut” does not look very good. It looks like a game from late in the life cycle of the PlayStation 2, not something that saw its first release in 2014. While this is fitting as the game is kind of a throwback to the horror games of that era, that does not make it any more pleasant to look at. From what I gather, a fair amount of this is due to a technical problem. The game is optimized for display on 32-bit systems, so on 64-bit systems the textures sometimes load in incredibly low resolution. In February 2015, Digital Happiness said they were working on a fix for this, but it hasn’t been mentioned in any of their announcements since. The actual designs of things tend to look great (especially the monster design), but the texture problems are pretty major. Some models are very stiff too, which certainly doesn’t help matters at all.
It is clear that a lot of care went into designing the way that “DreadOut” sounds. The game features a soundtrack of licensed music from several indie Indonesian artists, including a cover of the haunting classic “Gloomy Sunday.” The general background music is also great and helps build the game’s heavy, isolating atmosphere. I cannot say enough good things about the music of “DreadOut.” There are a few places in the game some of the ambient sound effects can get a bit annoying in their repetition, but that is such a minor flaw in a game with otherwise amazing audio like “DreadOut.” An odd side note about the audio is that the subtitles sometimes do not match up with the lines read by the voice actors; usually this shows up when the dialogue indicated by the subtitles is very poor English.
“DreadOut” plays just like the old school survival-horror games that it draws its influence from. In fact, the gameplay is essentially identical to the “Fatal Frame” series. The player battles ghosts and other spirits by taking photos of them with the camera on Linda’s cellphone. However, “DreadOut” also inherits some of the problems with that older generation of games. There are a few places where the difficulty suddenly spikes and a puzzle or two that are frustratingly obtuse. However, if you’re a fan of the sort of games that “DreadOut” is inspired by, then you’re probably very accustomed to dealing with those and understand that those are simply par for the course in this kind of game.
“DreadOut” is a success on its presentation alone. It takes a classic formula and breathes new life into it by centering it around Indonesian mythology. But even aside from the presentation, there’s a lot to love with the great soundtrack and solid (if not innovative) gameplay. Perhaps the most impressive thing though, is that two years after the game first came out, Digital Happiness is still working on new content in the form of a standalone DLC chapter called “Keepers of the Darkness.” Keep your eyes peeled for that, coming very soon.
