Alternative religions and cults have become all the rage lately, so much so that you can’t turn around without another one popping up.
The world of games has used made-up deities and the practice of strange religions for years, which have become great storytelling devices. Dead Space used its strange religion devoted to the Marker, and in the most recent game of Starfield, religions have been warring with each other for decades.
Unholy puts you into the centre of a religious cult called the Spring of Eternity; a cult that has become the mainstream and also a nightmare. Unholy is an apt name for the themes, but also for some mechanics.
I liked the story and the game’s atmosphere, especially in the first couple of hours. You play a young mother called Dorothea who has been part of this cult for a long time. She is trying to escape from there, when she finds her son is being sacrificed by the high priest. A magical old woman tells her that her son’s soul is being captured and held in a place called the Eternal City. After visiting her father’s apartment, she learns to traverse to this world, and goes out to rescue her son…
As I said, the storytelling and attention to detail with the environment and the characters are the saving grace of Unholy. The Eternal City is one I wanted to explore and find out the secrets of the cult and who the wise woman was. If the game would have gone down the more exploration part, utilising the point-and-click adventure-led mechanic where the game started, it would have been great. But it was in the combat and stealth sections with which the experience was ruined a bit.
Unholy is played in first-person, and the movement of Dorothea isn’t as smooth as I would have liked at times. When it came down to the more stealthy sections or running away, it felt a bit clumsy and rigid. You meet, very soon into the game, guards who, if spotted, would run after you, and you have the choice to hide or run away. You have a catapult to fire at the enemies, but that only stops them for a short while.
But the big problem is dying, which is instant and one-hit. From there you start the game again from a checkpoint, but I found bugs that would crash the game to white screen, left to reload. You don’t need me to tell you that meant things were a hassle.
When the game introduces zombie-like creatures, stealth takes a major step forward, along with the use of masks you collect and make. The combat and stealth are okay but do get tiresome after the instant deaths. However, some of the mask stuff is interesting, with different masks providing various talents. First of all, you have the ability to see in the dark and to highlight areas of interest, like collectibles or explosive barrels to trigger. Later on, as you upgrade the mask, you use it to survive a gas attack or for thermal vision to see enemies.
Visually, Unholy is impressive at times with all its different locations, from the realistic city and apartment settings at the beginning to the more strange underworld levels of the Eternal City. Character models are good, and some of the facial modelling in the game is impressive, as you can see from the wise old woman.
The sound score is really strong too, with some extra features like choosing different records in an apartment. That is complemented nicely by some really well performed voice work.
I want to love Unholy, mostly due to a strong story, strange narrative, great visuals and sound. But it’s the gameplay and the direction the game goes, that lets it down. Instant death and stealth don’t work as well as they should, and I’ve found Unholy to be more buggy than I would like.
So, Unholy is a mixed bag, but there’s certainly an interesting game in there, kicking around underneath the problems.
Unholy: The Psychological Horror Game That’ll Keep You Up at Night – https://www.thexboxhub.com/unholy-the-psychological-horror-game-thatll-keep-you-up-at-night/
Buy Unholy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/unholy/9NCWT2FGHXST
