- DEVELOPER: Okomotive
- PUBLISHER: Assemble Entertainment
- PLATFORMS: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Andorid, iOS
- GENRE: Adventure
- RELEASE DATE: May 17, 2018
- STARTING PRICE: 14,99 €
- REVIEWED VERSION: PC
Dean Holt, popular Urbex vlogger, sets off on another exploration of an abandoned home but this time things aren’t going as planned. Something dark is lurking inside and Dean quickly finds himself in over his head.
Normally, I don’t play horror games. I can watch other people play them with no problem, but I’m a pretty big sissy when it comes to being the person behind the controller. I think the last time I played a scary game was 2014 and I was playing Outlast and kinda quit before I even made it to the basement for the first time. But I received this one for a review, so I persevered for the sake of the video.
Game Premise
The Dire is a first-person, atmospheric, psychological horror game following Dean Holt, Urbex vlogger in his latest escapade through an abandoned home. I equate this to being a YouTube vlogger. Dean has found a mansion, long since abandoned after the horrific death of a young high school girl.
Visuals
This game takes place from the perspective of the video camera Dean carries. While this is cool stylistically, I have two issues with it. Firstly, the way the camera feels looking around makes me feel a little nauseous. That slight, barely lagging behind motion that sways slightly when you stop. I’m not sure how to best describe it but I know I’m not crazy as there are a few negative reviews mentioning this too. Secondly, the flashlight on the camera is so incredibly bright it gives me a headache. Maybe I spend too much time in my dark goblin cave playing and reviewing games, but it’s been a long time since something like this gave me a headache. I’m sure you all have heard of Outlast, in that game the camera he uses has night vision instead of a flashlight. I can see some possible inspirations the developer might have taken from Outlast so maybe they tried to avoid a direct copy, but I believe there’s a reason Outlast uses night vision instead of a flashlight.
Back to more positive things, since you have the perspective of a camera, you do get the neat visual effect of old tv’s with the faint horizontal lines, giving it an old retro feel. It also kind of dates the game so we know it’s not taking place in a super modern time, but late enough to where things like YouTube exist.
The design of the house you walk through is really good, and it has to be as if that wasn’t well done, you wouldn’t get nearly the same feeling as you do when you play this game. It feels like it was properly lived in at one point, but was very quickly abandoned as much of the furniture is still in the house where they would have been used. Dean even comments on this himself. This place is totally old and totally creepy and makes you wonder what could’ve made the family leave so suddenly, leaving behind pictures, toys, and possibly expensive wooden furniture.
During the attempted escape when you’re running outside, the overgrown foliage is a nice touch, adding to a sense of tunnel vision and light claustrophobia. When the pathway turns into a labyrinth, the area gets sparsely littered with objects to tell what direction you came from when you inevitably have to backtrack. You’re not given the direction, but you have means of finding your bearings so you don’t get entirely lost.
Music & Sound Design
The sound design is another crucial aspect of what makes this game good. The music is low and eerie and so creepy walking through the house, and really ramps up to get the heart racing when you’re faced with scares. The sound effects are a chef’s kiss. The quiet, empty house is filled with only the sound of your footsteps until it starts to get real. The ticking of the clock, disembodied footsteps, sudden shrieks of sound when a scare is revealed all really add to the experience and raise the hairs on my arms and give me goosebumps. It’s very clear the developer has done their horror research before making their game.
Gameplay Mechanics
There’s not many mechanics to talk about as this game is mostly walking, but nevertheless. here we go. Equipped on your camera is a flashlight that you turn on and off with F. Most times when you’re reading a lore letter, you’ll have to turn the flashlight off because it shines directly onto the paper, turning your screen into a big white flashbang. You can press shift to run. It’s always stressful to know a scary game has a run button. Press E to interact with things, such as opening and closing containers and doors. There will be lore left on paper like I mentioned, and you just click those to interact. That about sums up the mechanics.
Story
As mentioned before, you play as Dean. A student on a vacation from school, with a hobby for exploring abandoned places for online clout. He catches wind of a mansion that’s been abandoned for a while after the tragedy of the Reed family. An important note before we continue, this game mentions a specific act of self-harm that I will not name for fear of my channel getting shadowbanned. You can probably guess what it is, so we’ll leave it at that.
Early in the house, we find a Chlorpromazine prescription. For those like me who don’t know what this is, Chlorpromazine is a medication used to manage and treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and acute psychosis. So Diane was bad enough for them to know there was a problem, but they decided to drug her up instead of something like therapy. Maybe at the time the family lived here, mental health was more taboo than it is now. She was being bullied at school and this was at first believed to be the reason behind her psychotic breaks, but she eventually fell ill.
It’s not described what she was diagnosed with, but it was causing her much physical pain and deformities. They brought the doctor back in and he claimed whatever illness she had began to recede, and Diane, who was previously described as mentally unwell and animalistic, looked her father in the eyes and smiled. Not a pure smile, happy she was recovering, but the wide toothy smile of something that wasn’t Diane. A smile that says she’s outsmarted them.
In later notes the father curses the doctor, saying he’s completely wrong. Diane’s condition isn’t improving, her bones are growing and contorting, and she’s in so much pain she barely moves all day. She’s starting to behave strangely and aggressively, throwing furniture and once pushed her father to the ground, knocking him unconscious. One night, she was standing over her little brother, making sounds like she was choking, other times she stood in the corner of the room, fixated on something no one else could see. It’s at this point the father has started locking Diane in a small room, completely afraid of her. She emits horrible, unnatural sounds that no human can replicate. They should’ve called a priest at that point.
As you progress, you find notes from the little brother, who doesn’t seem to understand the unnatural forces at play here. He describes the cruel and inhumane treatment his sister receives. She’s undergone so many deformities, the neighbors wouldn’t be able to recognize her anymore. He can’t take hearing her screams from the room anymore, so one night he plots to let her out.
The next note we find is from the mother’s perspective. She tells of Diane’s act of self-harm. She says the house is oddly quiet but feels like she can sometimes hear her daughter’s screams. The younger brother, Cody, hasn’t said a word since.
After that, we find a long note from the father to his brother, and to keep it short, he shares that he had been somewhat cold to Diane her whole life, as was her mother. She never felt included in school, and it seems the only person who truly cared for her was her brother. At the time of her passing, he felt no grief, instead, he felt relieved as if he had dropped baggage he’d been carrying for years.
The next note is again from the mother’s perspective, about Cody. He’s begun to have psychotic breakdowns, becoming completely silent and when she tries to break him out of them, he gets physically aggressive. Sometimes he can be heard talking to himself, talking about Diane to seemingly no one.
With the key found in the kitchen, we finally unlock the room where Diane was being locked up. Immediately upon opening the room you hear loud buzzing of flies, and Dean comments on the smell, like something died in here. Other than the fact she was locked in here, this makes it much more obvious how horrible Dianne was being treated. She wasn’t allowed to leave to use the bathroom or given anything to clean up after herself.
Then we find a note from her, talking about the figure she sees. She explains she used to be able to hide from him, but now that she’s trapped in this small room, she has nowhere else to go, so she sits and stares at him from the opposite corner. It’s also in this room we find a map, giving directions to a hidden basement. Entering this basement you find 3 dead bodies in body bags, and a radio replaying police reports of their disappearances, until suddenly you hear a voice whisper “He’s in the hallway” and it’s at this point, the secret being found that the game really picks up.
The intense music kicks on, and Dean runs to a locker to hide from whatever is coming, and keeping quiet it lumbers past. From this point forward, there are no more notes to be found, only Dean running for his life. Some writing on literally on the walls helps Dean break out of the house, and after charging through a seemingly endless labyrinth outside, he makes it to the road. Whatever supernatural force that’s taken over this place seems to be limited to the property the house is on, as a figure stands and watches Dean as he gets in his truck to leave.
Plot Part 2
Now, what if I told you that the happenings of this house Dean sees are a figment of his imagination? Recall the book from the beginning of the game, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven. The story of a man who cannot get over the loss of his lover Lenore, and gets visited by a raven that will remind him of his loss evermore. It just so happens that Dean has lost his lover as well.
Just a few months ago before the incident, she had been asking him to take her to this specific location he visits in the game. Either as a form of punishment and repentance, or an attempt to honor her memory he decides to go to this place alone. Now, remember the note found in the fridge, saying to not believe what you see.
It’s entirely possible that Dean is experiencing a kind of psychotic breakdown himself or some kind of drug-induced paranoia. We know Dean uses because when in the basement, if you are caught by the big guy lumbering past the locker he’s hiding in, we see a police report stating he passed from an OD. You’re probably wondering, “well if he got caught, wouldn’t it be a murder?” I then offer you the thought that this figure is a symbol, in the same way the Raven is in Poe’s story.
Remember how Dianne could see him in the room but no one else could? It’s because he was a figure or voice in her head telling her to hurt herself, perhaps because she was in so much pain and she wanted it to end. So when Dean gets caught, he in turn finds a form of relief through drugs, but as we know takes too much, and whether that’s on accident is up for interpretation.
Thank you to the developer for helping me fill in some of the missing gaps that I missed during my playthrough.
Conclusions
In conclusion, though I am not a horror game enjoyer, this one was objectively pretty good. Did I have fun? Not really, playing horror games is not my idea of fun. With some adjustments, this game could go from good to great. Other than my previous complaints, my only other gripe is there are no cutscenes in the beginning during character dialogue or exposition, instead you get a black screen to look at while you listen. Even a static picture would be better.
The rest of the game however is good. In addition to my previous praises, the scares are paced really well. You get a good balance of almost peaceful quiet and scare. You’re given lore letters as you progress, and these moments offer a feeling of safety in addition to the exposition while still adding to the horror of the situation.
English (UK) 
Hrvatski