Kholat (Vide Game)
Ted Hentschke
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Developed by IMGN.PRO
Available on PC and PS4
Suitable for ages 16+
If I had to point out a silver lining to the current shit-nado of indie horror games, it would have to be how easy it is to buy a dozen of them for four dollars. After seeing all the gobs of money that Scott Cawthon made with Five Nights at Freddy’s, every hack with a basic understanding of Unity and a free couch to sleep on is trying to make their fortune with the next indie horror smash hit. YouTubers and Streamers, seeing how much money people like PewDiePie and Markiplier make off of pretending to be scared manchildren, will hoover up as many as possible with the hopes of riding that children-train to internet stardom. The result is an oversaturated market with more awful content than 4chan, and even fewer moments of rare quality.
Even though I hate just about every single person that is responsible for this mess, I still have sympathy for the decent devs just trying to do their best. Every once in awhile a Bloober Team enters the mix, with a genuine love for horror and some good ideas. Sometimes these titles do pretty well, but more often than not I end up shoveling them up in one of the bazillion bundles that specialize in indie horror titles. Sites like Humble Bundles, Groupees, Bundles Stars, and Indie Gala cater to cynical fucks like me, who enjoy spending their off time shitting on the artistic creations of noobs. Take that, amateurs! That’ll teach you to try to live your dreams!
Point being, Kholat is a game that I, A) got in a Humble Bundle along with two other games for a dollar, and B) surprisingly isn’t terrible. I… I’m lost. I don’t know what to do if one of these games isn’t shit! Do I… do I praise it? Should I just quickly store it under the floorboards, pretending it doesn’t exist until its still beating heart drives me mad? Oh God, years of senseless disregard for indie titles! Is it possible they were all good? What have I done!
Competent visual direction? In an indie art game? Blasphemy!
Oh wait, it’s $20 on Steam and PSN. Phew, I was worried there for a second. $20 is the price point I kind of expect a game to have some level of quality. Still, what a fall from grace. Are sales really that bad that they have to give it away for a third the share of a dollar? The game is narrated by Sean Bean, can’t imagine he came cheap. After playing through Kholat, it’s definitely worth more than 33.333¢ (repeating of course). Is it worth $20? Eh, hard to say. I did get it for slightly less than a quarter and a dime, after all.
Another installment in the growing genre of “walking simulators,” Kholat mixes things up by making it a walking and sometimes running simulator. It’s a cross between games like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Outlast. Similar to EGttR, you mostly just walk around while snippets of dialogue play and crazy visuals stun your senses. Like Outlast, there is a monster that can kill you. You don’t really hide from it, it’s more like a timer making you run between two points while being spooked. So like I said, “walking while sometimes running simulator.”
Unlike the plot, the monster gets clearer the closer it gets.
Based on the infamous Dyatlov Pass Incident, Kholat tells the story of someone investigating the deaths of some campers in the fictional mountain region of Kholat. The real life event is the kind of unexplainable phenomena that makes even the most rational of skeptics scratch their head. So look into it if you want another reason to never go outside again.
The actual campers and their mysterious deaths is little more than a framing device, since the actual journey in Kholat is a surreal, supernatural adventure that skirts the edges of reality. You’ll find notes from the previous investigator alongside newspaper clippings about bright lights in the sky, records of heinous experiments, and diary entries of normal people. The spectacles you witness are far from the normal “hallucinating a room changing” trope, with the entire sky exploding with color while the clouds rush past as though the entire planet was pitched through space by some explosive force. Pillars of rocks will raise into the air, swirl around you, and crash back into the earth with shockwaves of electricity. There’s certainly an unreal quality to it, but each of these hazards can kill you as much as the ghost haunting the narrow paths and abandoned facilities.
I don’t know if it’s all about aliens, monsters, or mad science experiments. What I do know is that it looks cool.
It’s a genre that I generally describe as pretentious bullshit and Kholat isn’t without its fair share of pretentiousness. The narration by Sean Bean is well delivered, but reeks of style over substance. It doesn’t mean anything to just say pretty words if they don’t come together. In Kholat’s case, it only ever comes together vaguely. Vague can be okay, but I’m left wondering if they were vague because it worked better or because they couldn’t figure out how to tell it better. Just coming up with cryptic metaphors and vaguely powerful dialogue isn’t hard, but is often substituted for real substance. It’s the kind of high school writing that separates games as art from other, more refined mediums.
That being said, Kholat far more wowed me with its excellent visuals and interesting presentation than it pissed me off. This is an absolutely fantastic game for fans of the genre. Hell, I’m the opposite of a fan, and I still liked it. I don’t think it will appeal to people who just abjectly hate slower art games, but anyone that has even a remote passing will find something to like.
There is a LOT of walking around in snow.
It’s not quite as streamlined, but I think that Kholat is about as good as Dear Esther. I don’t necessarily think that fans of one will like the other, as they have very different tones and presentation. Those that it does resonate with will find an inescapably compelling experience. I just couldn’t pull myself away from Kholat. I never found it confusing, annoying, or obtrusive, because I just wanted to see what happened next.
So like I said before, is it worth $20? I don’t know. I loved every second of this game. There were times that I certainly found flaws, but that would be me nitpicking. It’s not uncommon that someone who professionally plays games finds a few bugs or inconsistencies. The experience they crafted with Kholat was captivating. My only hesitation is that I don’t know how much anyone wants to pay $20 for the chance to wander about in some spooky mountains. If you get it on sale, for any sale price, it will feel like a steal. It certainly did at three for a dollar. Please buy this for more than a dollar.
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Game
Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
