Becrowned is as close to an old school Silent Hill as you can get

We are in a golden age for indie horror right now. Titles like Crow Country, Signalis, and HollowBody have taken the genre into new directions whilst clearly showing reverence for the games that inspired them. In an era of flashy remakes and increasing focus on graphical fidelity it is nice to have games that concentrate on the looks and feel of the PS1 classics. The latest entry in this field is Becrowned, a true retro survival horror that more than borrows from Konami’s Silent Hill series.

The central protagonist is a man named Richard Torrance, but with he demo starting in media res rather than being the opening section of the game, there’s not much more to say about him than that. The Steam page describes him as a ‘man of strong will and unbreakable character’ which sounds like the beginning of a hubristic journey to me. There seems to be some kind of Dante-esque story with definite themes of punishment and regret which has always worked for the more psychologically infused Silent Hill over the action focus of Resident Evil.

That being said, there is plenty of combat included in the Becrowned demo, including a familiar feeling boss fight. The sense of familiarity is exacerbated by the demo being set in a hospital, further bringing it into direct comparison with its predecessors. The staccato movement of the enemies and their inhuman appearances are straight out of the Masahiro Ito playbook and fit right into the dark and grimy environments. You find both melee weapons and guns to fight off these foes but ammo is limited – although not as severely so as in some other games.

There doesn’t seem to be inventory management at play here, which seems to be a common shift in the current generation of indie horror. I can see the generic appeal of juggling items but it isn’t something I miss when games remove the limitation. Puzzles involve finding items and unlocking blocked areas with a couple of really well designed examples in the demo. One puzzle in particular requires you to interpret a poem in order to rearrange a bookshelf filled with Gothic classics – not surprisingly, as an English Literature lecturer this felt laser targeted to my interests.

Graphically, Becrowned looks suitably dingy and hellish, although the devs have shared some more expansive and open environments on social media, so there may be a welcome variety in the full game. Most of the demo takes place in very tight corridors but it is possible to dodge enemies in traditional survival horror fashion. The retro aesthetic is further achieved through a VHS-esque filter that gives the grainy effect that we know and love. Sound effects are creepy and atmospheric with unpleasant slapping footsteps and inhuman screams.

While my experience with the game was a positive one, there are some notes of caution to raise. Rather than being loosely inspired by Silent Hill, Becrowned currently needs to find more of an identity of its own. HollowBody managed this through the futuristic British urban setting and I’m keen to find out how 13th Street Studio will push this incredibly solid foundation into something that stands on its own merits. The reliance on radio static and the hospital setting feels like an overzealous tribute to Konami’s series. Running felt a little clumsy at times and there seems to be an overly punishing stamina system in place which makes dodging through groups of enemies a little hit and miss. There are also some balancing issues to work through, especially with one enemy having a spit attack with an overpowered range and damage, whilst the boss fight could benefit from a little more signposting (and possibly not being a one-hit kill).

I enjoyed my time playing through the demo a couple times. The first time I took my time to fully explore and think through the puzzles whilst trying to collect every item I could, whilst the second was more of a speed run. The latter is helped by the puzzle solutions being static rather than randomised so you can sequence break to some extent by opening coded doors out of order – doing so too liberally will result in you not gaining the essential firepower you’ll need for the boss fight though.

Becrowned truly captures the essence of classic Silent Hill and will make for a really interesting comparison to the Bloober Team remake coming out soon. With a little more confidence in finding its own identity it could even look to compete with these classics.

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