Developer: Tessera Studios
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Platform: PS4
Tested on: PS4
Intruders: Hide and Seek – Review
Intruders: Hide and Seek is a First-Person Stealth game, developed by Spain-based Tessera and published by Daedalic Entertainment. Intruders: Hide and Seek is available on PlayStation 4 and is compatible with PlayStationVR, but not necessary to play the game. After a vacation house is invaded by three intruders, it is up to a young boy to save his family.
Story
You play as Ben, a young boy, who is on holiday with his parents and sister. After they arrive at the vacation house and they have had dinner, the two children are sent to their beds. Ben and his sister, Irene, aren’t tired yet and decide to see what their father is up to. They follow him to the garage where he seems to suddenly disappear. When they hear their father re-emerge, they find a secret passage behind the garage wall. It is a panic room, and from there, they can monitor the house. Suddenly, three people invade their home and violently capture their parents. Ben decides to go outside the panic room, to try and help his parents, while Irene stays behind. He has to locate his parents and try to find a way to alert the authorities, all the while trying not to get noticed. He will have to quietly sneak around, while Irene can monitor the activity in the house in the panic room. The two children can stay in contact with each other, by use of Walkie-Talkies, and together they will have to avoid the attention of the intruders and ultimately, save the family from a violent ending. Why the three intruders chose your house and your family remains a mystery, but it is clear that there is something more going on in Intruders: Hide and Seek.
Graphics
Intruders: Hide and Seek doesn’t look extremely impressive. The visuals are simple, but adequate. The design of the house is detailed and looks realistic, much like a luxurious vacation house. The character models are okay. The texture of the faces are somewhat off-putting and look very weird. The parents look ordinary, and your sister looks and acts innocent, which works well for the narrative. The three intruders are very different from one another and each of them are menacing in their own way.
As you might know, in a dark horror game, the use of lighting is very important, and Intruders: Hide and Seek does this well. Most of the lighting comes from the light of the moon outside, shining through the many windows of the house. Other than that, the game is very dark, and a flashlight helps you look for things. A nice little detail, visually, is the rain that drops on the windows of the house and the flashes of lightning surging through the whole house. The only gripe you might notice is that when you hug a wall, you can see that you emit a light, probably coming from your Walkie Talkie. It might help you in the dark corridors, but isn’t very realistic that you would hide from enemies while emitting a bright light. Additionally, the screen often fades to black in the beginning of the game and when you exit your map, which sometimes feels a bit slow-paced.
Sound
The music in Intruders is atmospheric and very effective. The slow pitched sound of the game adds to the suspense and keeps you in a state of unease. The voice-acting is a hit and miss, where some actors are very believable in voicing their characters, and others come off as very stale and forced. While you are making your way through the house, you’ll constantly hear the heavy rain violently dropping against the windows, and the thundering sounds of lightning strikes act well as false jump-scares. The sounds and music In Intruders: Hide and Seek are one the best features the game has to offer and makes for a suspenseful experience.
Gameplay
Intruders: Hide and Seek is First Person Stealth game where it is your mission to sneak around in a large vacation house, avoiding three intruders, whilst helping your parents and sister, to ultimately save your family from the clutches of the three intruders. The game is offers a nice challenge, albeit for a short play-through of only three hours. The game starts off with a small tutorial in which you and your sister play a game, where you learn the basic mechanics you will need later. After the intruders are in the house, you will have to sneak around. The enemies are roaming around in the house with a flashlight, looking for you and your sister. In the game, you will constantly get new objectives and each objective is located in a different room.
Your sister stays in the panic room and from there, she can follow you on the cameras, giving you instructions and warning you about the movement of the intruders. The controls are simple; you can crouch to sneak around more quietly, you can use a flashlight to light dark corridors and rooms, but be careful not to give your position away by doing so. You can contact Irene on the walkie-talkie and you can access a handy map with the layout the house, with a blue icon to mark your position and a red one to mark your objective. You can also access your active objective from within the map, where the game also conveniently shows what your objective looks like.
Because the home invaders can change their location and walking pattern, you constantly have to be careful. Running will be noisy and alert them, so you’ll be crouched most of the time. When noticed, it isn’t possible to outrun them, but you can try to hide. The house is filled with containers and closets for you to hide in. When an intruder is in the same room as where you are hiding, the screen will show your heart rate and you will have to shake your controller in unison with your heart rate, or else you will panic and fail to stay hidden. If you happen to get captured, one of the intruders will knock you out and you’ll have to restart from an earlier checkpoint, which can make the game challenging, and you’ll constantly have to figure out the best approach to reaching a certain area.
You can look around in the house for collectibles. These can be random objects, hidden in cupboards, on the terrace outside, on desks and so on. Looking for the collectibles is completely optional, of course, and it makes the game more challenging by going out of your way, entering rooms you don’t have to go to, and risking more exposure.
Conclusion
Intruders: Hide and Seek is fun Stealth game, with tense gameplay, suspenseful music, inside a giant detailed vacation getaway. The game has it apparent flaws, such as a slow-paced narrative, average voice acting and average graphics. Additionally, Intruders: Hide and Seek game is short-lived experience, unfortunately, with an average play-through of only three hours or so. Although you can play the game without the use of VR, it is recommended, as it will enhance the experience. The game’s narrative has some twists up its sleeve, that makes for a thrilling third act, and a satisfying ending, but ultimately, the game has you longing for more. The concept of the game is great, the execution above average, and although it definitely has the potential of being a great game, it just doesn’t get there. Overall, with its flaws included, the game is an enjoyable experience for fans of the genre and can make for a suspenseful evening of playing Hide and Seek.
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