Discover Your Inner Demons In The Beast Inside – Preview
Classic survival horror with a twist.
The Beast Inside opens with a gruesome murder. A brutal execution, gleefully performed by a mysterious masked man with a disturbing collection of murder tools. It’s hardly a surprising way to start a horror story, except there’s a twist: you’re the horrible murderer. You’re the villain. At least, that’s how it appears from the first-person perspective you witness the vile act from.
Recently funded on Kickstarter, The Beast Inside seems to be a horror title with ambition. Ambition to be more than the tired rollercoaster of cheap tricks and jump scares that fills Steam’s store pages. It tells a story that jumps around time. Starting in the current day with Adam and his wife, who have just moved into the nightmare house from Resident Evil 7. I’m joking, of course, but it’s not far off. A big, spooky house in the middle of nowhere? Nothing bad could possibly happen here.
After the horrific intro, we’re treated to a more pleasant scene. While Adam and his wife are driving through the serene countryside the game takes the opportunity to show off the surprisingly impressive visuals and sets the stage for some inevitably nasty stuff. Things seem rather ordinary as the content couple begin to unpack; the kind of ordinary that surely can’t stand in a tale that revels in guts and gore.
As has been the norm for first-person horror game since Amnesia: The Dark Descent lit the world on fire in 2010, every action you perform is slow and methodical. Every door is pulled open manually, every box carried and thrown Half-Life-style. It makes sense that this would become the standard for horror games. The dread that builds as you slowly peel a door open is an essential ingredient in mounting tension and an unsettling atmosphere.
However, as with The Beast Inside, it can also detract from the experience. When your physics are spotty and removing a plank of wood blocking a door becomes finicky and awkwardly precise, it can pull you out of the game. You’re quickly plucked out of the carefully-crafted atmosphere and back into the real world, where you’re fully aware that you’ve been moving a piece of wood in a video game for over a minute now and you still can’t get through the doorway.
Meanwhile, the unpacking of boxes from car to attic (why bother sorting anything when there’s an attic to shove stuff into?) leads you to a mysterious package. The kind that’s begging to be opened. I’ll admit the next part surprised me somewhat: a puzzle. A rather involved one, too. One that had me deciphering an excerpt from none other than Julius Caesar. Perhaps it was just me being dopey, but I definitely snagged against this brain teaser for a few minutes.
The Beast Within quickly shows itself to be more than your average horror thrill ride, with an appreciation of Amnesia: The Dark Descent that goes deeper than I’d initially expected. There are hints of clever puzzles and even a lockpicking minigame that’s definitely not copying Oblivion. Not to mention some light resource management with the matches and kerosene that you’ll need to light your way.
This is where things get weird. After you crack the box open, a flashback occurs and you jump back some 150 years to the account of Nicholas, a 19th-century man in the very same house. It’s night and the atmosphere is immediately palpable. A creepy-looking dude hanging around outside leads you to a shed in the back. Inside, you find a newspaper clipping about brutal occurrences and eventually end up in the very spooky, very Evil Dead basement. Without spoiling the ending of the demo (which you can play right now), it makes quite the impact.
The Beast Inside makes a great first impression. One that goes beyond initial expectations and marks it as something special. Something to keep an eye on. The game seems to make concise use of its modest crowdfunded budget, with nice lighting and surprisingly sharp visuals. There’s also some solid voice-acting. Parts of the recordings sound a tad rough, hinting to their undoubtedly amateurish production, but they’re generally pretty good.
Ultimately, The Beast Inside has me intrigued. I’ve played more than my fair share of independently-made horror games on Steam. Many are offensively bad, utterly forgettable, or sorely unoriginal, but Illusion Ray Studio’s upcoming thriller appears to have much more to offer. With an abundance of ideas, a compelling concept, and surprisingly solid production values, The Beast Inside’s unsettling atmosphere and fear of the unknown should be strong enough to compel horror fans.