Those Who Remain – PAX East Preview
Thanks to Resident Evil’s resurgence and games like Until Dawn finding a huge following, horror games are on the rise. To succeed in what is becoming a little bit crowded you need to stand out. Jump scares can be a dime a dozen, but Those Who Remain focuses on the psychological make the horror hit in a different way.
The darkness is not your friend. You’ll see shadowy figures in the dark just waiting for you to step into their domain. To make them disappear you need to find light fast. Switches around the world will light up red for you to find them quickly and turn them on.
The other mechanic in this game is even more fascinating. You’ll move between two different realities. Your current timeline and one much different. It’s unclear whether it’s the past, future or a different dimension all together, but one thing is clear – both worlds are connected.
To solve puzzles, you’ll need to transport between the two worlds. You’ll find doors that lead you to the different plain. One of the puzzles we saw during our playthrough involved simply opening a car door. For some reason we couldn’t get to the handle, as if a force was blocking us from even being able to touch it. A little exploration led us to a glowing door. Entering the doorway sent us to the other dimension. There we could see the car covered in ivy. Therefore, we couldn’t open the door on the other side. One conveniently placed herbicide sprayer later and we finally had the ivy removed. Trying to open the passenger door made us realize that the door was rusted shut on that side. Returning to our reality we could finally enter the car from the driver’s side. Though the car was rust free here, we still couldn’t open the passenger door in thus world.
There is a lot to be excited about here. The game is inspired by twin peaks, has three completely different endings (the good, the bad, and the horrible) and every decision you make will have an impact.
The controls were a little choppy and the game seemed to lag a bit at times. We’ll see if that is corrected to make the experience as good as possible. Look for Those Who Remain on PS4, Xbox One and PC soon when the game releases on May 15th.
