The Blackout Club is a stealth horror game developed by Question Studios that manages to strike the perfect balance between the scientific wonderings of Stranger Things and the supernatural nature of Dishonored. By sitting pretty between these two franchises, The Blackout Club is able to make what lurks underneath Redacre’s seemingly quiet suburbia tangible yet completely incomprehensible. You play as the new kid in the Blackout Club, a club made out of teenagers who have been awakening at random times to find themselves covered in mud and scratches. With a mysterious cult controlling every sleeping adult in town at night, exposing their sinister plans to the world will be no easy feat. But with help from other players, the odds are in your favor.
One of The Blackout Club’s most notable achievements is in its level design and world-building. While the game reuses assets and building layouts, each playthrough provides players with different challenges and enemies to be aware of. While the initial stages of each level feature abundant use of sleepers, blind sentries who bumble around and guard against meddling kids like you, things get interesting as you descend into the underground maze. What I found most striking about the maze was how it was built to invite intrigue. Throughout the maze, one can encounter massive cello like strings the reverberate throughout the area, Sleepers working inside mysterious machines, and chests filled with useful items. The game constantly invites you to snoop but not without cost. Any misstep can alert the nearby sleepers, lucids, drones, or cameras. Coupled with the off chance of encountering a stalker, a traitorous player from another game whose purpose is to sabotage your playthrough, there is always something to deal with or run away from which allows for a lot of intriguing play.
The most important enemy to keep your eye out for though, is the Shape. Unlike its peers, this enemy appears if your team makes too much noise or alerts a drone or camera. What makes the Shape so harrowing is that it is only visible by closing your player’s eyes. If it catches you, it controls your body until your teammate awakens you. If you are playing solo it’s an instant game over. Avoiding the regular enemies while also minding the Shape’s slow but purposeful lurch towards you provided some much-needed tension near the end of each level. Although once you get used to its presence it’s fear factor definitely drops by quite a bit.
When you aren’t sneaking around or frantically running away, The Blackout Club has a lot of interesting features to be explored at its home base. At its current state, the character creator is pretty bare-bones with its darkest skin shade being way closer to the color black than necessary. This doesn’t bode well in a game set at night, but I do trust the Question development team to make the necessary adjustments after the game launches. There’s also a skill tree where you can upgrade your items and abilities to reinforce whatever playstyle you chose. Whether that be upgrading your weapons use to aid in heavy-hitting takedowns, upgrading stealth items to aid in quieter approaches, or anything in between, the game has got you covered.
Though, what I found to be intriguing is the game’s use of gods and sacrifices. Sometimes after completing missions players can receive ritual items that can be sacrificed to summon certain gods called Voices. Once you complete a sacrifice, players are then able to send a message to the voice of their choosing by speaking into their headset. Whether the player receives a response depends if what the player said is in line with that Voice’s interests, goals, and backstory. While this is not a system I extensively used, I found this to be one of the most innovative tools for lore development that I have ever seen in a game. This allows players to discover and learn more about the world by building off of each other’s Voice interactions thus creating their own lore bible (which can be found on the game’s Wikia page). I commend the Question development team for attempting such an ambitious feat and I hope other developers take note.
The Blackout Club offers players an experience few other games can boast. despite some glitches and issues that need to be resolved I still enjoyed my time with it. While the game boasts itself as a horror title, I would describe it as a “hold-your-breath” type of thriller at best. With that being said, for those looking for a tension-filled co-op romp through an intriguing world filled with gods and music, The Blackout Club will not disappoint. I give it 9 ritual sacrifices out of 10.
Check Out The Blackout Club Video:
The Blackout Club launches tomorrow, July 30, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam. For more information, join Discord and visit the official website https://www.blackoutclubgame.com/
PlayStation 4 Review
Ever since I first played The Adventures of Cookie and Cream on my older brothers' PS2, video games have always been a source of intrigue. While the medium can transport us to far off worlds and time periods, my interests lie with more grounded narratives revolving around topics of culture, POC and LGBT+ issues, and the magical realism of day to day life. When I'm not writing, designing, or talking about my own video game projects, you can find me playing Yakuza 0 until my eyes bleed or exploring the world of Rapture for the twentieth time!
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