Every week numerous games release on Xbox One. While many are substantial experience like Shadow Warrior 2 and The Surge, there are a few hidden gems here and there. Many of these smaller games have either caught the public's eye or are just stellar...
The Dyatlov Pass incident, a tragic event where back in 1959 a group of experienced ski hikers from the Ural Polytechnical Institute were found dead under mysterious circumstances on Kholat Syakhl (a mountain in the Norther Ural region) is the perfect...
We have been seeing an increase in “atmospheric” games of late, or as they are better known by their player-created Steam tag, “Waking Simulator”; games like Dear Esther and Gone Home have made exploration the key element in their creations, where...
Kholat's narrative exploration is ambitious, and the real world base for its plot, the recreation of exploring a bewildering and unforgiving landscape and the audio-visual design were all superb. But for what it gets right, the mounting flaws in its design only become more evident and distracting.
Developer: IMGN.PRO Publisher: IMGN.PRO Platform: PC I really wanted to like Kholat. I really did. I've had my eye on it for at least a year, and with every fresh look it kindled my interest further. Conceptually it's fascinating. Kholat is inspired by...
Backstory Based in Reality Despite the revitalization of the horror genre on PC, there's often a lot of misdirection in horror games. Classic horror elements, like atmosphere, narrative and mystery have been all but forgotten in favor of jump scares,...
In many stories, blizzards and the frigid cold provide a specific kind of terror, and Kholat's moaning winds cry out tales of lost souls that the game ignores in favor of shapeless nonsense. Its ideas reveal the game Kholat wanted to be, but its aspirations soar far higher than the game it became.
As a lifelong fan of Fortean mystery and atmospheric adventures, Kholat is a game I really wanted to love, but it left me out in the cold in more ways than one.
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