‘Hypnostasis’ Game Preview: Psycho-Surreal Trauma

There’s something to be said for how influential some horror mods were. Projects like Cry of Fear, or the original Aliens total conversion for Doom, or even Total Chaos brought a level of intensity and resource management to the table that only a single vision could really muster, especially when working within the limited toolsets of their respective parent games. Having said that, it’s shocking to me how reminiscent Hypnostasis is of these classic mods, even though it’s something wholly original with the scope and scale to show for it.

Developed and self-published by TPX500, Hypnostasis is a resource-driven survival horror game that looks simple on the outside but features all the staples of the genre I’ve come to adore and then some. Though the game’s demo has been around for some time now, I figured I’d give it a quick look during the Steam Next Fest. And I’m certainly glad I did.

A Classic Survival Horror Game

The demo for Hypnostasis keeps its narrative cards to its chest, for the most part. But that’s not inherently a bad thing. You’re given a few crumbs of what appears to be a therapy session, indicating that whoever you are, you’re going through some stuff at the moment. Whatever it may be, you’re left to traverse your apartment complex after a particularly startling dream, with reality seemingly bending and twisting itself to serve your twisted psyche. The other residents of the complex aren’t acting like themselves. A strange presence has been roaming around outside. And every other room in the building seems to defy the rules of rationality and common sense. Maybe your mind is just playing tricks on you. It’s nothing some cheap chocolate and booze can’t fix. . .

Hypnostasis follows the usual standard when it comes to first-person survival horror games, albeit with more of an emphasis on exploration, looping paths, and puzzle-solving. You’ll collect items, open locked doors, fight enemies, and gradually unveil the true nature of what’s going on. Are the monsters real? Are the scares real? They’re real enough to kill you, that’s all that matters for now. But what took me by surprise was how authentically retro it felt.

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The game’s presentation doesn’t just lean into ultraviolence or surreal visuals; it pairs them both together in a strange combination of the two. Enemies are authentically low-poly, looking more like thick blocks meant to resemble people instead of people themselves. Distorting visual effects, immersive sound design, and unconventional mechanics lend themselves to this strange, otherworldly atmosphere that the game immediately plunges you into. It all comes off as something less designed by committee and more-so made with the intent of just putting in as much cool stuff as possible.

The same can be said for its mechanics. Hypnostasis embraces traditional survival horror by incorporating inventory management, item boxes, dedicated save areas and safe rooms, and so on into its gameplay loop. But even in the most basic of things, Hypnostasis puts a fun spin on them.

Take how saving your game works, for instance. Instead of managing ink ribbons to save a limited number of times, you’re able to use red powder to assign a specific symbol to a handful of blank ritual circles scattered around. These symbols allow you to create a dedicated area to either save your game or store your items outside your apartment. But not at the same time. It presents some interesting opportunities for routing and efficiency, which I can also appreciate. There’s also the typical crafting and inventory management you’d come to expect, which is good in of itself.

Much like Total Chaos, you also have to manage a variety of status effects on top of your health. Sanity is the big one here, being managed with food and alcohol, as losing your sanity gradually introduces more visual noise and other potential hazards that you’ll have to contend with. You can also bleed, which is managed with gauze, and you have a variety of medications to treat stomach pains, poison, and other potential ailments. Weapon durability is a nonissue here, though you’ll have to manage your ammo supplies and healing items effectively.

The demo has a lot of meat to it, surprisingly. There are quite a few puzzles here to work with, and while they’re not crippling brainteasers, they do force you to think a bit about how you’re interacting with their elements. One puzzle involving an avian eye was a fun highlight of these, along with a series of statues dotted along a community garden you’ll stumble across.

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I also liked how combat felt, the few times you get to interact with it. All the enemies feel appropriately alien and intimidating, they can deal a pretty substantial amount of damage even on the game’s standard difficulty, and they can tank several knife stabs to the head. Hell, you can even blow up their head, and they’ll still keep coming at you for a short while. The demo teases some particularly nasty-looking monsters as well, though they’re few and far between.

There were some issues, though. The pump action shotgun was essentially unusable due to some strange bug involving its ammo count and its firing animation — picking the gun up showed that it was already in the middle of its firing animation, and trying to use it to attack something did virtually nothing. That was the single largest bug I stumbled across, and I really do hope it gets fixed. I also have mixed feelings about the community garden section. No spoilers, but a roaming enemy that’s immune to your attacks frequently darts in and out of your presence, and they’re such a non-entity that they’re more annoying than terrifying or intimidating.

Should You Play Hypnostasis?

I’d say yes, you should absolutely try Hypnostasis. It may not be the flashiest horror game I’ve covered recently, but what works here works in a way that I really enjoy. Bugs aside, there’s some potential here for something really compelling, in a gameplay sense at least, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least somewhat interested in where its surreal storytelling elements were going. If you want to see a fun mix of gore and psychological scares, you’ll happily find it here.

Be sure to check out Hypnostasis for yourself on Steam.

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