Someday You’ll Return – Review
Follow Genre: Narrative-driven psychological horror
Developer: CBE software
Publisher: CBE software
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC

Someday You’ll Return – Review

Site Score
6.0
Good: Soundwise the game is quite decent
Bad: Graphics underdeliver, Gameplay is very bland
User Score
6.0
(2 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 6.0/10 (2 votes cast)

CBE Software brought us a psychological horror game with their new title Someday You’ll Return. The game can be compared to the Silent Hill games, Outlast 2, and Resident Evil 7. It’s set mostly in ancient Moravian forests and will follow the journey of Daniel, who is searching for his missing daughter. The search will lead him to dark secrets that should’ve stayed buried.

Story

You start out as Daniel, who is on his way, searching for his daughter Stela. She has a habit of running away and always gets herself in some kind of trouble. But this time it feels different, more dangerous than ever before. A long time ago he installed a tracking app so he could always find his daughter wherever she is. So Daniel gets in his car and decides to drive to the location that the app is providing.

The application sends him to the edge of a forest where he sees an old lady standing near the dirt road. He asks her if she saw his daughter, but only gets a kooky answer out of her and decides to leave her and continue on. A bit further he reaches a barricade and needs to start walking, not a minute after he left the car a tree falls right on top of it and left it completely broken.

In the woods, he gets the feeling he knows this place; a place he swore he would never go again. Daniel reaches for his phone to check the app and which direction he needs to go. Following the path, he hits a dead end because of a broken bridge and needs to find another way. Not much later his ex-wife calls him to bicker about their daughter and that she doesn’t know where she is, but the connection gets lost and you need to find higher grounds.

Daniel continues on his search for his daughter and will encounter more than he has bargained for when he roams the woods. The flow of the story is a bit strange as Daniel continues to search for his daughter but due to some events, he gets knocked unconscious more than once. When he is unconscious he has lucid dreams and after waking up, the scenery around him changes. He uncovers more and more of the Moravian forests every time he wakes up and hopes that every piece of this deranged experience will lead him closer to finding his daughter.

Graphics

The graphics left us a little conflicted because at first glance they looked pretty amazing. The overview of the woods and certain areas were beyond gorgeous but when we took a closer look, a lot of the assets in Someday You’ll return they just weren’t detailed enough to fit the overall appearance of the game. Some textures were way too stretched on the edges of certain objects which made it look like a blurred mess and some dirt paths were even floating above the ground. Those things should’ve been noticed by the environment artists when they tested the game and aren’t that hard to correct either.

Sound

Sound-wise the game has a lot going for it; the lucid dreams and jumpscare parts are pretty intense because of the right background music and scary noises. Overall the whole game has the perfect amount of music; as the sound designers have not overworked it, so it seems much more realistic. Someday You’ll Return is also fully voice acted, even when Daniel talks to himself, calls his ex-wife, or ends up trapped with an illusion in a sinister daydream.

Gameplay

Someday You’ll Return is a narrative-driven psychological horror game with strong adventure elements that takes you to an ancient Moravian forest where you will spend most of your time roaming the woods by foot. You can walk or sprint throughout the whole scenery, to find some kind of clue or passage to progress in the game. Other times you are just on your phone checking calls, messages, or the tracking app. The game also provides you with a collectibles log, allowing you to go out of your way and search the corners of each area to find candy wrappers or boy scout emblems.

This routine gets broken by the crafting and herbalism. When you are searching the woods, you can find useful items that you need for these skills. The skills themselves aren’t that complex and are straightforward, so you won’t need much explanation to get the hang of them. You can also find rock paintings that are clues for finding a casket with a bunch of items that are sometimes needed to progress.

Besides what is mentioned above, there isn’t much else to do in the game, which makes the gameplay a bit bland. Because the only thing you are doing 80% of the time is waiting for something to happen and when it happens, it sadly underdelivers. Maybe if you aren’t used to jumpscares and other horror related elements, this game could actually be scary.

Conclusion

Someday You’ll Return has a lot of potential in certain areas but ends up underdelivering. The gameplay is very simple and consists of walking and waiting for things to happen, which is a bit of a letdown. Sound-wise the game is very decent and there isn’t anything that needs massive changes, but when we go look at the graphics it fails horribly in basic design properties. They should’ve taken a bit more time to actually make decent textures for their environmental assets so it would really make this game feel more alive. Overall it feels rushed and unfinished, but if you don’t have anything better to do with your time it may be worth checking it out.

 

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 6.0/10 (2 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
Someday You'll Return - Review, 6.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings
Spyro


I'd rather flame the fools.

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