For a little over a decade now, indie developer Benjamin Rivers has been crafting some fairly unique and expressive pieces of media. Starting with graphic novels and working towards video games, the man has always walked his own path when it comes to creating. Never sticking to one genre for too long, his games have gone from point-and-click adventure to party game and then horror. While you may not exactly know what each game is about, the name of "Benjamin Rivers" should give you a baseline of quality with to expect.
Worse Than Death doesn't break that rule. Bearing resemble to Rivers' 2012 title Home, Worse Than Death is a sidescrolling horror romp with a fairly introspective story about keeping secrets. A genre Rivers has already tinkered with, one could say the game almost feels like a homecoming for Rivers. This fits in nicely with the central premise the game hangs its story on.
Well, That Escalated Quickly
At the beginning of this adventure, players assume control of a young woman named Holly. Returning to her quaint village for a high school reunion, we quickly learn that her friend Flynn has been torturing himself for the past few years. Flynn blames himself for the death of Grace, his ex-fiancé. He’s convinced the accident that killed her was his fault. Holly, meanwhile, seems to have something she needs to tell Flynn, but can't quite figure out the best way to do it. It's not too long before things go awry and both people are fleeing for their lives.
Escalating from 0 to 100 in mere minutes, Worse Than Death wastes no time in throwing players into the fray. You’ll be given a short tutorial on how to control Holly and then set loose into the school to interact with your classmates. After talking for roughly 10 minutes, people start dying and Holly is on the run for her life. It's refreshingly breezy, especially for a horror game.
Simple And Successful Mechanics
Being a sidescroller, there isn't much in the way of controls for Worse Than Death. You'll move left or right and be able to interact with specific objects in the environment. An icon over Holly's head will show you what action she can take, be it simply investigating or opening a door. A few puzzles will make use of the Switch’s touchscreen if you're playing in handheld mode, which adds a layer of immersion to the proceedings. It's not revolutionary stuff, but having to actively think about how you're manipulating puzzles does make the more simplistic mechanics feel involved.
A light stealth system is in place to let players hide from ghastly apparitions, which doesn't come up nearly that often. Holly will simply hide in the shadows while waiting for her assailant to run off. On Switch, the Joy-Con's "HD rumble" is put to surprisingly effective use. Mimicking Holly's heartbeat, each controller will rumble with more intensity as enemies get closer. When they are right on top of you, both will make a huge jolt before violently shaking, accurately creating the sense of dread Holly is likely feeling. While not necessarily scary, Worse Than Death certainly is a tense game.
Missed Opportunities
Those fleeting moments are the only bits where Worse Than Death fully reaches its potential. In every other moment, one could swear this was a sequel to Home. The game plays out like the puzzle portions of Resident Evil games, with players collecting clues and backtracking through environments to put pieces together. It's not bad, per se, but it never really does anything original.
There are no time limits or death scenarios or anything remotely scary. The soundtrack is certainly spooky and ominous, but the lack of monsters chasing you makes stretches of the game feel weightless. Worse Than Death puts more emphasis on the story, which is fine. The narrative, though, isn't all that detailed when things wrap up.
Holly and Flynn don't truly start interacting with each other until the last major area and the mystery players are piecing together is fairly straightforward. It's pretty obvious from the start what is going on, especially since these enemy creatures aren't showing up all across the town. Those moments where you're sneaking around are intense, but they also don't crop up enough to sell the premise of a haunted village.
Surprisingly, Worse Than Death's length might be to blame. Clocking in at roughly three and a half hours, there isn't enough time dedicated to exploring the game's mechanics to their fullest. Puzzles don't repeat themselves, but there's a sense that solutions could have been evolved more if the runtime allowed for it. For roughly 75% of the game, each puzzle plays out in a linear fashion with minimal backtracking. It's not until the very end that players will be required to make a mental map of the area, learning the various hallways and how to properly avoid the enemies within.
While that last area does feel like a culmination of all the mechanics you've learned up to this point, it still could have been expanded to something bigger. Worse Than Death is just starting when the credits begin rolling. Harder difficulty settings will make enemy encounters more deadly, but it won't fix the issue of brevity.
If that's the worst problem, though, then that's hardly the end of the world. People that are turned off by overly intense horror games will likely find this game an enticing prospect. The game isn't demanding (both in terms of subject matter or length) and it doesn't overstay its welcome. It just would have been nice to get some more closure to the story or experience some grand exploration of the mechanics contained.
More than anything, Worse Than Death is just a fun little horror romp ready in time for Halloween. At $9.99, you could do worse than grabbing this.
A PC review code for Worse Than Death was provided to TheGamer for this review. Worse Than Death is currently available on iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
Worse Than Death