Amateur Recommendation Hour: Observer

Today’s recommendation is the first horror review of the scary month and an extremely unique blend of genres. Maybe not the most unique in how it presents it's themes or in how it is played but a quality piece that I believe to be more than worth your time.

Observer is a first-person cyberpunk horror game developed by Polish studio Bloober Team. It balances both cyberpunk and horror extremely well, never feeling like it’s leaning too heavily on one or the other. Building tension through atmosphere and sound design very effectively. It is full of the "good" kind of horror. Psychological horror lingers and builds a sense of dread readying itself to defy expectation. Jump scares are physiological reactions and are more “surprising” than scary (sorry for the somewhat jarring off-topic editorialization there, I felt it had to be said).

Oberserver is set in 2084 Krakow, Poland after the nanophage, a "digital plague" that cost the lives of thousands, resulting in war and rampant drug use killing many. One morning, detective Daniel Lazarski, a cybernetic detective known as an "Observer" receives a call from his estranged son Adam, whose caller ID is traced to a tenement building. What he discovers is the first domino to fall in a multifaceted and unsettling series of events.

I believe this work to be a reflection of where humanity is headed. Allowing more and more technological innovation at a rapid rate and incorporating these new technologies into our lives, bit by bit slowly taking away more and more of our humanity. Because of that it is a bit thematically derivative of other much more well known cyberpunk fiction but that does not make it's message any less impactful or delivered in, as far as I know, to be a fairly unique manner. Personally I think it's conclusion most certainly paid off the methodical build up it employs for it's 10 or so hour run time.

This work may be a difficult recommendation to a broad audience as its gameplay loop is extremely minimal, I imagine there's some useless semantic debate that's been played out in response to this game as to whether or not it actually qualifies as a "game" or could be regressively be called a "walking simulation." If you're open and flexible when it comes to how these kinds of experiences play out I'd say it is well worth giving a shot and seeing if you like it.