‘The Drifter’ Review: Carpenter-Inspired Game Is One Of The Year’s Best
Modern updating of classic genres is an inherently tricky balance. Change too much and your game lacks the intrinsic elements of its genre. Change too little, and your game will play as archaic as its thirty-year-old influences. For developer Power Hoof to achieve and maintain this modernizing balancing act with their pulpy pixelated point and click adventure, The Drifter, but also to do so as polished and stylish as they have, makes their latest a contender for one of the year’s strongest releases.
We meet vagabond Mick Carter riding the rails once again, returning home to attend his mother’s funeral. Though it seems Mick rode the wrong railcar into town, as his arrival is met with gunfire, murmurs of monsters killing homeless people, and a slew of seedy murders laid at his doorstep. In case it wasn’t apparent, writer and designer Dave Lloyd has imbued the game’s story with enough pulpy genre elements that are laid on so thick you’d mistake it for a carton of Tropicana. And to be clear, I wouldn’t want it to be any other way.
The Drifter‘s narrative ventures down several genre avenues, making for a story that is difficult to predict as to just where its next turn will take you. One minute, the narrative may seem grounded in solving a missing person’s case, and the next, Mick is faced with horrors that shouldn’t exist. The supernatural twists and turns Mick’s journey take will have the player questioning whether they are guiding the most reliable of narrators. This grants the narrative, whose tropes are undoubtedly familiar, to be presented in a more refreshing light.
Also Read: ‘Hold The Fort’ Review: Silly Monster Movie Fun [Fantasia 2025]
Facilitating The Drifter‘s genre elements is the game’s overall vibe, if you will, which I lovingly refer to as Carpenter-esque. It doesn’t hurt that the game opens with a protagonist riding the rails, which makes me feel as if I’m stepping into the boots of Roddy Piper in John Carpenter’s class-conscious 1988 sci-fi film, They Live. However, the atmospheric and engrossing production value is apparent even before the game begins. The main menu opens to a black screen, and two glowing red eyes pierce the darkness. As the darkness slowly starts to dissipate, a train track is revealed; those red eyes are shown to be rail yard lights affixed to scaffolding, all while composers Louis Meyer and Mitchell Pasmans’ moody score slowly bleeds in.
Why highlight a game’s main menu presentation? Because it is an immediate indication of The Drifter‘s attention to production value and overall art direction, which never wavers in fully utilizing the genre elements it holds so near and dear to its pixelated heart. And while countless point-and-click adventure games sport chunky, pixelated graphics, such as The Drifter does, the game is a pristine example of how not all nostalgia-laced pixel art is crafted equally.
Also Read: ‘The Undertone’ Review: Audio-Based Horror Delivers Familiar But Incredibly Effective Scares [Fantasia 2025]
Art director Barney Cumming and Matt Frith’s background art sets the brooding stage for Mick Carter’s plight in expert fashion. While being knee-deep in the dingy, seedy underbelly of the city sounds like a somewhat muted setting, even the most dour environments pop due to their depth of detail and atmospheric lighting that’s straight out of your favorite noir film. Given that the locals grow more diverse the further down the rabbit hole Mick’s journey takes the player, the game’s world is as fascinating to explore as are the answers you’ll uncover.
Now, it would be one thing to look and sound like a Carpenter production. But when you pair this stylistic and class-conscious influence with Stephen King’s world-building, you’re left hanging on to every word of dialogue. Within the opening moments of the game, Mick hops from a train car to avoid gunfire, rolling down an embankment, only to land squarely at the feet of an old friend, Bill.
Also Read: ‘Weapons’ Review: Shocking, Satisfying and Singular—An Instant Horror Classic
As far as hero’s journey stages go, Bill is the mentor who helps Mick cross the threshold into his new understanding of the place he once called home. What follows are encounters with familiar and fresh faces, each of whom wears their personalities on their sleeve, some helpful and some less than forthcoming in aiding Mick. Character personalities are where much of the game’s dry and cynical humor originates, which is not only entertaining but also serves as a nice palate cleanser to the game’s darker subject matter.
Elevating the character’s personable writing is voice acting that further pulls you into the deceiving world of The Drifter. Much of Mick’s personableness and layered depth comes across as a result of voice actor Adrian Vaughan’s expressive performance. Capturing both Mick’s internal and external turmoil and trauma, while never stifling the character’s capacity for empathy and warmth, is central to Mick’s likability. It’d be easy for circumstance to jade Mick to the degree that he is only defined by his misery. Still, through Vaughan’s performance and Lloyd’s writing, Mick is emblematic of Carpenter and King’s influence on the everyman protagonist, who shakes off what life has thrown at them in service of those they care deeply for.
Also Read: ‘I Live Here Now’ Review: A Psychedelic Deconstruction of Feminine Self-Loathing [Fantasia 2025]
In terms of modernizing touches to gameplay, while The Drifter‘s overall approach is familiar, its polish, organization of information, and logic-based puzzles make it notable. The game’s twin-stick control scheme made navigating the world a breeze, and while I played on a Mac, this would make it equally ideal for playing on the go with the Steam Deck. Regardless of the platform, the game’s control scheme feels more approachable to those unfamiliar with traditional point-and-click adventures.
Additionally, bridging the gap for genre newcomers involves organizing information effectively. Given the numerous story beats and clues uncovered, information is cataloged and updated for the player to reference when they are unsure how to continue. Veterans may view this as a form of “handholding”; however, I found this feature to be a clear and concise way to organize information, which keeps the game’s momentum moving without detracting from its puzzle difficulty. Item discovery and combination are unsurprisingly the bread and butter of the experience, featuring clever, logic-based puzzles that occasionally require players to think outside the box. Occasionally, I would stumble upon a puzzle that gave me pause, requiring me to revisit environments I hadn’t diligently explored, but no puzzle felt ridiculously abstract.
Also Read: ‘Noise’ is More Whisper Than Less Blood-Curdling Scream [Fantasia 2025 Review]
The most drastic change to the point-and-click adventure norms is Mick’s ability to redo scenarios in which he dies. There are a handful of timed puzzles that require the player to think on their feet; failure to do so results in Mick’s death. Which, yeah, that’s how most games work. However, when Mick dies, the screen goes white, and he is resurrected, aware that he has just come back from the dead, but now possessing knowledge tied to a specific location and its puzzles. Resurrecting provides the player with knowledge to survive these encounters, while also having a narrative importance that is best left a secret. The synergy of gameplay mechanics and narrative importance is yet another way that The Drifter makes a notable name for itself within the budding point-and-click adventure genre.
In an era where we see weekly releases of games that rest firmly on the laurels of their influences, while adding little uniqueness, The Drifter is a creative and confident departure from the norm. While utilizing clear-cut genre influences, Power Hoof has executed on these influences with expert precision, while doing the legwork to craft a gorgeous world bustling with intrigue and characters you can’t wait to interact with. Simply put, The Drifter is one of the year’s best, and sets a new benchmark for point and click adventure titles.
-
The Drifter
Summary
The Drifter is one of the year’s best, and sets a new benchmark for point and click adventure titles.
Categorized: Horror Gaming Reviews
