HUMAN

Psychological horror games are pretty tough to create, given the fact that so many elements must work perfectly together in order to induce the proper mood. The genre also makes use of more subtle ways to scare players, so it’s in bad taste to have hordes of monsters chasing you around and still call it a psychological horror, because that’s a whole different thing.

HUMAN is a first-person horror game in which your main goal is exploration, as well as solving the occasional mini-puzzle. There’s no deep story to keep you hooked like in Silent Hill or the Penumbra series, but the atmosphere is quite engaging most of the time, not to mention the fact that you might get really frightened every now and again, depending on your experience with the genre.

The story puts you in the role of someone who must explore an Alaskan research facility in order to find out what happened to the employees there. Naturally, things get a lot worse along the way, especially once you realize that there’s some kind of entity in the facility. Thus, the exploration turns into a survival situation, which means that you must find your way out and stay alive.

As the developer puts it, the game itself is not overly complex, but it has multiple layers you can get to know if you devote enough time to it. Hence, there are all sorts of notes and symbols you can stumble upon along the way, but it’s up to you to take the time to understand them. Granted, don’t expect anything life-changing, but it’s nice to see something more complexity in regards to the story.

The graphics are pretty nice as well, at least when it comes to the post-processing effects and the lighting, which are crucial in a horror game. Unreal Engine 4 really shows its potential in this case as well, but it’s a shame that the assets are not very detailed. On the other hand, this is a one man studio, so there was obviously no time to waste on pretty environmental objects.

In the end, HUMAN is certainly not perfect, but it has what it takes to scare you a little bit. Moreover, the atmosphere is great for an indie production, so we can only hope that the developer improves his craft over time and continues to deliver better and better games in the future.