Anthology of Fear – Review

October is here, so with Halloween just around the corner, the scary, spooky and outright disturbed are coming out to play and today we’re taking a look at Anthology of Fear from Poland with Ultimate Games, OhDeer Studio and 100 Games.
The story follows our main protagonist Ethan who’s off to explore a potential lead at an abandoned medical clinic in search for his brother Nathan, with some spooky events and video tapes, you’ll soon be stepping into the shoes of a few others as you uncover the secrets of the facility and the people associated with it.

Starting off, everything starts pretty well, developed primarily by OhDeer Studio a one-man team from Poland, it’s a pretty impressive standard for a small indie game. There are small nods to titles like “Layers of Fear” and “In Sound Mind” as you’ll get a few creepy vibes to keep you on your toes.
Heading for the clinic, you eventually work your way inside to discover a video tape, which takes you to control two new main protagonists, a patient and a nurse at the hospital.
These two tapes represent pretty unique chapters, which delve into the circumstances of each individual and those around them.
Being a memory, they don’t specifically have to follow reality, so you can except things to be a little weird and more unpredictable, but overall, there’s the same flow of the game, linear with an open path, allows you the freedom to explore your occasionallt still limited surroundings.

I’m a bit of a horror fan, so it’s safe to say I’ve seen it all before, but kudos when any game can make me jump. There are a few instances clearly designed to frighten the player, which were a little too predictable and staged (especially early on), but once I’d delved into that first tape, a couple of jump-scares caught me out, which is high praise for any game.

I believe there were two, possible three occasions, but certainly not any more, however the game doesn’t revolve around trying to scare you, it’s mostly eerie and creepy while dealing with a few sensitive subjects, so it does a good job of leaving you feel unsettled.

The first tape, explores your average, creepy and dimly lit corridor maze, which does start to feel a little repetitive towards the end as controlling Ethan around the clinic shares a very similar feel, but doesn’t really outstay it’s welcome and you’ll be moving on before you know it. the second tape is a little more grounded, but definitely no-less disturbing. Progression continues on a fairly linear path, but in a more open and varied environment.
There’s also a fairly clever “Puzzle” to solve in each tape, the first was definitely the better of the two, with the second becoming more “search and locate” rather than actually using any brain power.

Towards the end of the second tape (about 30 minutes from the conclusion of the game), there’s a short cutscene, when a you’ll briefly take control of a third-party, and this is when we encountered a pretty critical issue, with the game crashing to dashboard.
We tried reloading the save multiple times only to meet the same fate, and a hard-reset to clear local cache, provided about a 2 second glimpse of the scene before we had exactly the same result, even reinstalling the game and using the cloud save again resulted in a crash to dashboard.
We did install on Xbox Series S and managed to continue from the same save-point without any issues, so it seems to only effect the Xbox Series X and sadly there’s no chapter/checkpoint select, you either reload the save or start again.
We have notified the developers, and it’s worth noting, this is a pre-release build so could be fixed for release.

The overall presentation for Anthology of Fear is very impressive, there’s often grainy textures and dim lighting that masks any graphical shortcomings, but there’s a realistic head-bobble that’s stronger than we see in many games, but I definitely feel like it added to the immersion and feel of the game.
While clearly not pushing the boundaries of next-gen hardware, it’s definitely not a bad looking game.
Likewise, the sound is all pretty positive, you’ll encountered a few repeated sound banks, but with headphones on far louder than they should be at 2am, it definitely added to the experience.

To be completely honest, prior to the crash issue, I was really getting into the game, and thoroughly enjoying it, gameplay wise, it’s a little standard, but with the engagement improving with every corner and good, if not great graphics and sound, there was a nice flow, things where progressing at a decent pace, and I was ready for more, much, much more.
So, when finally getting chance to finish off that second tape, I was looking forward to another chapter, another few tapes and plenty more creepy moments and jump scares.
But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, instead there’s a pretty abrupt ending, which feels unfortunately rushed, there’s even an entire floor of the clinic inaccessible so it feels like maybe the original plans were cut short in order to release in the run-up to Halloween.

The total play-time ended around the 3-hour mark, I also unlocked 10 of the 13 achievements, (which would require an entire new playthrough to complete) so it’s tough to see it lasting much longer for the majority of users.
With another tape or two, and a few more hours of content this could have been very highly recommended, but with the crashing issue and not much to do after that, it struggled to provide the value I was hoping for.
There’s still plenty of positives, because even just those first 2 1/2 hours prior to the issues, the game was really starting to feel positive, and the potential here paints a very bright future for the developers.

Despite the last half hour, Anthology of Fear is still a sweet, but very short scare for those looking forward to Halloween and I hope it will prove a valuable stepping stone for the developer(s), I can’t wait to see where they go next.
I just wish this instance was a little more fleshed out with better quality control.

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