Reveil Review (PS5)

Reveil is a courageous ropewalking act that tries to balance the tropes of a walking simulator with the crucial elements of a horror game. Next to taking you on some leisurely strolls and benign puzzles, the adventure game published by Daedalic will literally make you run for your life and try to build tension in any way possible. Is the end result worth your time or are you better walking different avenues?

Of course, the obvious and intentional pun from the intro refers to the fact that Reveil is yet another walking simulator. But the game developed by Pixelsplit manages to stand out as a courageous representee of its genre, that is not afraid to take risks and, though with some obvious limitations, it offers more than just the experience of walking around to take in the game world.  

Although the walking simulator term is often considered a derogatory term, there are quite a few memorable interactive stories out there worth experiencing. Among them is now Reveil, that puts the players in the shoes of Walter Thompson. He is the character that you will control through a world that at first seems to be the result of a traumatized mind, which tries to make sense of things by fitting together pieces from different puzzles. But at the end the situation takes an unexpected sci-fi turn.

It all starts in a house crowded with various knick-knacks and quite large in volume, yet at first glance perfectly ordinary. Soon the architecture takes a macabre turn, and the rooms open up to impossibly large outdoor spaces or become enveloped in an alarming red hue. Tubs full of blood, occult altars, and waking up on a train are just a few of the inexplicable phenomena that accompany our hero’s search for his wife and daughter.

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The path to find your family is in no way straightforward and is told through five chapters, following a structure that reminds us of Groundhog Day. At the beginning of each chapter Walter wakes up with a debilitating headache and sets out to find out what happened to the most important people in his life. In sync with his collapsing mental health, the surrounding world becomes more and more twisted and turns against him the more he remembers.

The apartment that seems always the same, yet is different each and every time, serves as the starting point of your expeditions that lead you to an old circus, take you to a nightmare trip aboard a classic train and even throw you in an ominous dark forest stumbling around using a flashlight. Things become more and more sinister and dangerous as the protagonist puts together the pieces of the event that traumatized him.

But nothing is as obvious as it seems, and although it is impossible to explain madness, you can’t help but have a nagging sensation that some elements feel out of place even in the middle of this meltdown that washes together past and present, real and imaginary. Without spoiling any surprise, the end of the game will put to rest all these suspicions and give a somewhat unexpected conclusion. Unfortunately, all the buildup fizzes out in a somewhat disappointing finale.  

Reveil is a short game that can be finished in a couple of hours if you know exactly what you are doing. But since a big part of the experience is to explore the game world, gather and put together clues about what is really happening, and also solve puzzles, the real gameplay time will be significantly longer.

The puzzles themselves are very simple and do not represent any real challenge. The bulk of the time will be spent rummaging around the game world, taking in the sights and finding the notes and collectibles often hidden in plain sight. The developers chose to spice things up by alternating the pacing of the game, through the stealth sections and chase scenes. While crawling around is rather bland, the ones having you to run for your life are anything but.

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There are plenty of memorable moments, but the scariest one happens on the train where you have to escape from a mannequin chasing you. The action is simple yet impactful: you have to run away crossing wagons and opening the doors between them. The action involves pushing a button and sliding the analogue stick in the right direction.

You can feel the pressure weighing down on you and by trying to open the doors as fast as possible there is a chance that you will fumble. If you do not slide them fast enough and you get stuck, there is a high chance that the nightmarish doll with catch up to you. There is no real punishment if this happens, other than having to start over from the last checkpoint.

And though you can do it as many times as needed, the chase sequence remains just as scarry with each repetition. Making you run away from danger and then running towards it, while working against an invisible clock, is a devilishly brilliant mechanism that creates a memorable moment.

Reveil has 5 different endings, but none of them require you to replay the whole game. With the exception of one ending you have to replay only the last episode of the last chapter. And thus, the replay value is quite limited, the only incentive to replay the whole of Reveil being missing a collectible or a note revealing more details about the story. But even so it is worth playing through the game to experience the story.

The art style of the game can escalate from detailed and benign to the stuff of nightmares very quickly. The graphics in general look good, but some objects and scenes are more detailed than others. The different settings you visit contribute to a surreal and very tense atmosphere that stays with you even after you finish the game. The only voice you will hear during the game is the protagonist’s, the great voice acting helping with the immersion and strengthening your bond, as you discover the events at the same pace, and feeling the same sense of dread.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion