A Shadow-Dropped Nightmare on Fort Oasis
I’m a real sucker for a mystery. Whether it’s a film, television show or video game, the craftsmanship involved in taking someone on a journey so perfectly crafted that it both leaves clues but keeps them guessing to the end is seldom matched.
Chiefly for this reason, Total Chaos immediately caught my attention at the Xbox Partner Preview with its shadow drop only sweetening the deal. However, in the end this isn’t what I enjoyed most about it, not by a long way.
Things get going pretty quickly in Total Chaos, with your character getting chewed up by a raging storm and ending up marooned on a mysterious island named Fort Oasis. With no choice (well almost) other than to venture into the eerily abandoned buildings, it’s here where the horrific discoveries begin. What follows is a fragmented, sometimes confusing tale of terror, torture and tragedy that unfolds tantalisingly slowly.
Scavenging for Survival
Total Chaos is a survival horror FPS where scavenging materials and crafting items is critical for survival. At the start it’s just melee weapons that you’ll find, and despite the ability to parry attacks and dodge out of the way, the close combat is slow and cumbersome meaning you’ll do very well not to take significant damage. This is compounded by your limited stamina, meaning after a few swings you’ll need to pause and take a breath.
You’ll instantly feel safer when packing a shotgun or revolver, but ammo is scarce so you’ll need to use it wisely. Thankfully, there are plenty of materials lying around with which to craft back-up melee weapons (such as axes and sledgehammers) and this can normally be done at the workbench next to each save point. It’s a good job too, as durability means only so many monsters can be clobbered before your weapons shatters completely.
There is, however, a catch. Your (admittedly) generous inventory space is limited and before long you’ll become encumbered. This will slow you down and make outrunning your enemies much more difficult, and risky. If you try to carry even more, you’ll grind to an almost complete stop. This is where decisions need to be made about what to keep, and what to chuck away. Each item has a weight to help you choose.
Scattered around Fort Oasis are notes, clues and maps that flesh out the story and help you figure out a way forward. However, it’s blueprints that will unlock new crafting recipes and give you better protection against an ever growing army of monsters. That’s not just weapons, but other crucial items used to heal, stop bleeding and satisfy hunger too.
Pivoting into Madness
What Total Chaos does quite brilliantly is blur the lines between what’s real and what isn’t. There are several occasions where the only way forward is to pivot fully into a state of madness, usually with the help of a little unprescribed medication.
In this state, supposed dead ends will open up when revisited as the maze-like environment twists and changes around you. These hallucinogenic segments play tricks, assaulting the senses with shrieks and shadows that stalk you through your own personal nightmare.
As chilling as these drops into insanity are, Total Chaos is not quite as relentlessly terrifying as Amnesia: The Bunker or Alien Isolation. But when it does lean into survival horror, it’s pretty darn scary.
Stalkers and Shrieking Banshees
Most of Fort Oasis’ inhabitants can be clubbed to death with some sort of blunt instrument, or pumped full of lead, but a handful cannot. There are some especially vile creatures which stalk you, and each have their own behaviour. It’s at this point where extreme fear will set it, meaning your only option is to flee. That, of course, is easier said than done.
For example, there are some genuinely unsettling, shrieking banshees that hover towards you, but only if you are looking away. This essentially means you need to back away whilst maintaining eye contact, so you can’t properly determine an escape route. Turning a corner and watching it float back into your eyeline before coming to a dead stop is a chilling sight.
There’s another situation where several fuse boxes are missing their crucial component, and they just so happen to be scattered around a dark, dingy maze. You aren’t alone however, as a marauding monster patrols the corridors rambling to itself accompanied by the sounds of a crying baby. Avoiding it is your only option, and opening the various gates needed to proceed will see it come running to investigate.
Audio Excellence and Frame Rate Fumbles
It’s these moments where both visually and audibly Total Chaos shines, and it’s genuinely terrifying. Overall it’s not the best looking game, but the tactical use of sound to keep you on edge means you’ll not really notice too much. Unfortunately, what can shatter the illusion is just how jittery things get at certain points, usually when the action hots up. The frame rate slows right down, and visually it all gets very choppy before taking a few seconds to recover.
Total Chaos can be extremely unforgiving at times, especially as you get deeper into the game. If you drop your concentration, battles can very quickly spiral out of control and you won’t survive at all. Running for cover to prevent becoming overwhelmed, recover your stamina and heal is difficult, as opening your inventory doesn’t pause the game. This is where assigning items and weapons to the D-Pad directions is absolutely essential, otherwise you’ll get torn to shreds whilst trying to fiddle around with your inventory.
That’s not to mention the constant ambushes awaiting around almost every corner to consider. Thankfully, save points are generously scattered to prevent too much progress getting lost.
An Eerily Absorbing Struggle Against Insanity
Despite getting myself killed repeatedly, and running out of ammo every five seconds, I very much enjoyed my time with Total Chaos. It took me a good 15 hours or so to complete, and despite the environments not being too large or complicated, exploring paid off for me most of the time.
The dungeon-like design and crafting system kept me intrigued, especially as the story ended up playing second fiddle to the eerily absorbing world I was drawn into. I was much more enthralled with how it was told rather than what I was learning about the characters.
Total Chaos is a disorientating tale of mystery, horror and survival which despite some frustrating niggles, details a desperate struggle against insanity itself.
Important Links
It’s a Nightmare Collision: Total Chaos Plunges Xbox Players Into Day One Game Pass Horror! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/its-a-nightmare-collision-total-chaos-plunges-xbox-players-into-day-one-game-pass-horror/
Download through the Xbox Store, using Game Pass if you like – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/total-chaos/9phtx5qz035t
