Trenches Game Review (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Some experienced horror in the trenches during World War I. Today, Khandekler wants to live their hell in a different way…

owing to Xbox Canada and ID@Xbox media coverage and offering us a copy of the game to try out its games. Therefore, the publisher/developer gives us permission to distribute and/or use the game excerpts for our production needs and does not interfere in any way with final pricing.

Bad memories haunt the trenches

Trenches of Ratalaika Games It offers a new perspective on hell as it plunges you into the horrors of the trenches during the First World War. As a lover of horror games, I descended into these corridors of mud and dirt to find the ghosts they contained.

It is gray in color. It’s monotonous. It’s stressful.

The original idea of ​​Trenches is great and could have set the stage for a slightly more unusual horror game. Actually, it is, but not as much as it could be with a little more work. Because while it’s a good idea to use World War I (WW1) as a backdrop, the overall execution of the game makes the adventure rather monotonous, frustrating, and lacking in real flavor.

As the name suggests, Trenches puts us in trenches dug during the First World War in 1917, and our ultimate goal will be to survive. On the other hand, the action does not take place in reality, but rather in the shattered psychological state of our hero, a soldier haunted by visions of the horrors of war and a strange and hideous creature…

To escape this nightmare, we will have to walk through narrow corridors of earth and mud, inhabited by lost souls who often make us jump in fear. It should be said that stress and jump scares are probably the best workers in the Trenches. These are also well supported by the use of soundscape, which is central to the game’s core mechanics.

It is through sounds that we will be able to locate the creature stalking the trenches, hide from it, or jump to our heels to save us. And to find a way out of this maze, the children’s cries will act as pointers to follow to move from lens to lens. The good thing is that sometimes these hiccups will be more subdued, forcing us to use the whistle to hear more clearly. On the other hand, using the latter can be fatal for us, the creature can place us more easily, we don’t want that!

And this scary thing has very good ears, because not only can it find us by the sound of our whistle, but it can also see our footsteps and breathing. It is very important to prefer stealth by crouching down and making as little noise as possible, especially when we hear its heavy footsteps nearby. To add to the difficulty, the sound intensity of our footsteps will vary depending on the type of surface we are moving on. For example; running in mud will be less noisy than walking on wooden planks.

The game system of trenches is somewhat similar Roguelite, in the sense that from a certain point in the beginning of the game we will not make any saves, and once caught by a creature, we will have to continue from that point. The great similarity of trenches makes navigation difficult, especially in those parts where thick fog reduces the depth of our field of vision.

I’ll admit that always starting over with every death can get annoying quickly. And since the visuals are a little disappointing due to the low-resolution monochrome textures, we want to put the controller down to do something other than endure. Fortunately, many jump scares Our meeting here and there brings a little interesting side to the adventure.

The interaction with found items is not that great. There is very little to do besides read the small text that gives us clues about some things to keep in mind as we navigate the trenches. There are no puzzles, little manipulation of objects, in short, nothing very exciting. We will find some places to be safe to hide from the creature hiding in the trenches, for example, we will enter the walls, under the tables and other such places. You still have to be careful, because most of these places will give you the impression that you will be hiding there, and at some point you will be hiding there, and you will become easy prey for a creature that is constantly looking for you.

Basically, Trenches is based on good ideas to begin with, but its gameplay and overall execution lacks a lot of punch to make it a recommended title for fans of the genre. Even at $12.99 CAD, it falls into the category of games where it’s better to wait for a major price drop or save our dollars for something a little meatier.

Judgment