It’s hard to recommend horror games because horror fans tend to be plugged into new releases even, and sometimes especially, if they’re incredibly niche and indie. I loveSlay The Princess,Phasmophobia,Mundaun,Inscryption,Darkwood, andSignalis, and if you like horror games, you probably do too. I don’t need to recommendResident Evil 4,Alan Wake 2, or evenStill Wakes the Deep- if you love horror, you already know these are great games. There’s really only one horror game I can recommend to people anymore that they usually haven’t heard of, which is strange considering it’s one of the best. I don’t know why no one seems to know about the PT-inspired Visage, but that somehow makes it even scarier.
The developers at the now-defunct SadSquare Studio were upfront about the influence Kojima’s Playable Teaser for his canceled Silent Hill game had on Visage. After PT came out in 2014, there was a gold rush of copycat games looking to fill the void it left behind, and Visage was the best to ever do it. It’s a triple-A quality game with stunning graphics, a long (15 hours) run-time, a mind-bending story, and some of the best sound design you’ll find in horror. It’s in the running for the scariest game I’ve ever played, and it does it with nary a jump scare.
Visage builds terror through atmosphere and pacing. It’s a slow game about exploring an ever-changing haunted house. Think about the looping, surreal level design of PT, but set in the Baker House from Resident Evil 7, with the vignette story structure of What Remains of Edith Finch, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what Visage is like. It’s a game about a very strange house filled with remnants of terrible memories that demands to be explored and terrorizes you every step of the way.
What Visage does isn’t particularly novel. You have a sanity meter instead of a health bar, which drains anytime you’re in the darkness or witness a supernatural event, like a lightbulb bursting or a TV turning on a blaring static. You’re armed with a flickering lighter that barely keeps the darkness at bay, and pills you find scattered throughout the house restore little bits of sanity to save you from the looming void. We’ve seen mechanics and themes similar to this in games like Amnesia, Dredge, and The Sinking City, but Visage stands out for the way it expertly rides the line to keep you right at the edge the whole time.
It does this without resorting to cheap jump scares or overtly grotesque imagery. What’s so impressive about Visage is how scary it is, despite how infrequently you’re in any actual danger. Its use of lighting and sound design does almost all of the heavy lifting. Walking across a big room in the dark that you’re able to’t see the other side of is anxiety-inducing, doubly so when, as you reach the middle of it, you hear the sounds of footsteps on the floor above you. No one slams doors you’re trying to get to like Visage. Even when it’s being cliche, it elevates tropes to the next level.
Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the space and can safely move around, a freaky little guy is standing at the top of the steps, just staring at you. Or you walk into a bedroom you’ve been in five times already, but now there’s a bassinet in the corner, slowly rocking back and forth, the sound of a crying baby echoing from it.
And when it moves beyond classic horror tropes, Visage gets real weird with it. There’s some Escher-esque dreamy sequences that I dare not spoil, but the imagery has stuck with me for years, randomly popping into my mind whenever I let my guard down. For me, that’s the mark of a true horror masterpiece.
I’m pretty numb to horror just from sheer exposure, and Visage is one of the only games I can’t play alone at night. I did most of my first playthrough streaming to a friend over Discord. I framed it as a fun group activity, but the truth is I wasn’t brave enough to play it alone. Everyone has a different sensitivity level when it comes to horror, but Steam reviews largely echo my feelings: this is one of the scariest games ever made.
Unfortunately, the reviews also echo my one big complaint, which is that some of its puzzles are so arcane you likely won’t be able to figure them out on your own. The first three chapters can be played in any order, so I recommend starting with Dolores’ Chapter (find the key hanging on the wall outside the TV room to start it). This is the easiest chapter to get through without having to look up any puzzle solutions, and playing it will help you learn the language of the game and give you a better understanding of how to approach its more obtuse challenges. You may still end up resorting to a guide, especially in the fourth chapter, which can be frustrating and immersion-breaking in a game like this.
Still, I highly recommend Visage, especially if you’re not easily scared by games (and if you are, play it with a friend). It’s a spiritual successor to PT that lives up to the demo more than any of the other copycats, and even though it’s surely a far cry from whatever Kojima was cooking up for Silent Hills, it’s everything you want an atmospheric horror game to be.
There’s a lot of great horror choices this Spooky Season, includingSilent Hill 2,Mouthwashing, and (maybe) Slitterhead, but there’s something unnerving about an older game most people don’t know, based on a game that never got made, from a studio that no longer exists. Visage feels like a cursed VHS tape you get from a friend’s neighbor’s brother that you know you shouldn’t watch, but you just can’t help it.
