Developer: Digital Happiness
Publisher: Digital Happiness
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
Tested on: Switch
DreadOut 2 – Review
The original DreadOut celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, first being released back in 2014. It gained a lot of popularity in its home country of Indonesia, though international horror fans also enjoyed the game. So it wasn’t a big surprise when the developers over at Digital Happiness announced a sequel. While this second title came to PC back in February of 2020, we’re looking at the freshly released Switch version today to give you our thoughts.
Story
DreadOut 2 does assume you’re familiar with the story of the first game before you start playing, picking up right where that one left off. For those who haven’t played the original DreadOut or need a refresher, they included a video that summarizes the events. In the first DreadOut, high school student Linda got lost in the woods with four fellow students and a teacher on their way home from a school trip. The group stumbled upon a spooky building and encountered a series of supernatural creatures. While all her friends died, Linda survived after discovering she could harm demons and ghosts by taking pictures of them. While she used it to defeat the creatures, she couldn’t save the others. To make matters worse, it turns out those creatures were actually locking away an even more evil entity: a mythical serpent with destructive powers.
In the second game, Linda is back home where she’s trying to deal with the guilt she feels over the events of the first game. She’s also being bullied by her peers, who don’t know what truly happened and are suspicious of Linda for being the only survivor. With her powers, Linda starts sensing more supernatural events occurring around her that could cost other people their lives, which also seem to be connected to the same evil serpent now loose in the mortal world. To keep others from dying, Linda will have to fight back.
Graphics
DreadOut 2 looks a lot better than the previous game. It goes for a pretty realistic style that works very well in the cutscenes, with great character models and smooth animations. Outside of cutscenes, the graphics do deteriorate. The details look rough, though not too terrible. The environments also look like more time was put into them, making them feel more lively, more realistic, and – in the horror segments – more creepy. Despite the ambitious decision to make this game an open-world title, we did not notice any issues with framerate or the loading of textures, which was impressive.
Sound
We hope you like jumpscare noises! While the soundtrack of DreadOut 2 is pretty good, full of tension-building slow songs that accompany your exploration of the scary places you visit, they made the odd decision to mix in random sound effects meant to jumpscare the player for no reason. This got annoying rather quickly when we were trying to absorb the atmosphere. The game has some voice work, switching from full voice acting in some of the cutscenes to the characters only making noises and grunts so you have to read the subtitles to understand the dialogue in other scenes.
Gameplay
DreadOut 2 is a classic survival horror game with an open world full of side quests and optional content for you to explore. Thanks to Linda’s phone, you have a list of tasks and a map that you can fast travel across. Despite these things, it can be a bit confusing at times to find out where you have to go. The map shows general locations, like where the school is. But there’s no map for the school itself. And since these areas are quite large, you often waste time wandering around waiting for your bracelet to glow. A blue glow means there’s something nearby the naked eye can’t see and you need to use Linda’s camera to spot it. A red glow means an enemy is nearby.
The combat in DreadOut is very similar to Fatal Frame for those familiar. You aim your camera at the ghosts and wait until the timing is right to take their picture. A visual cue on the screen will help you. How much damage you do depends on your timing, with pictures taken at the very last second inflicting more. However, waiting too long is risky as the ghost will latch onto you and you’ll need to button mash to escape. Sometimes, you are transported into the ‘Distorted Reality’, a sort of shadow dimension made by the ghost you’re fighting. When you’re in there, your camera can only be used to damage the ghost superficially and you’ll use traditional melee combat with the use of improvised weapons found around the environment to finish the job. This combat offers variety and there are unique bosses to fight, though it has to be said that the controls of the camera on Switch are finicky. Aiming can get very frustrating.
Aside from combat, the game mainly revolves around exploration and uncovering new supernatural creatures as you go. It’s fun, if not very in-depth, stuff. Like in the first DreadOut, you can find items to heal with and if fighting isn’t your thing, running away from enemies usually pays off. The charm is mainly in how Indonesian urban legends and culture are interwoven with the horror elements of this world, making DreadOut a more unique experience than most other survival horrors. It’s just that in terms of gameplay, it’s all stuff we’ve seen a million times before.
Conclusion
DreadOut 2 is a reasonably fun and definitely scary delve into the world of the supernatural. Unique enemies with interesting backstories steal the show and make the tedious walking and sometimes lacking graphics or voice acting worth it because there’s always something new to uncover behind the next corner. The game does start to get more interesting as soon as you get used to those camera controls!
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