Hands-on with Confronted

Plenty of horror games have us run away from big scary things, without much in a way of defending ourselves. Honestly, I’m not a fan of these run, hide, and run some more, without ever thinking of a way to defend yourself. Thankfully we’ve had great horror games, revitalizing the notion of self-defence, such as Alien Isolation, and recently, the phenomenal Amnesia: The Bunker (our top game of 2023). This trend continues, even with smaller instances of self-preservation, be it by using some old timber to block yourself between you and a scary monster. Enter Confronted, a chilling horror game that features a dark castle, a sinister plot, and a brave hero who is a handy carpenter by trade.

What is Confronted?

Radu Castle hides a dark secret that our hero Dorinela must face head-on as she revisits her past. After receiving a desperate plea from an old friend, Dorinela ventures into the bowels of the castle, recounting all the trauma she wished to be long forgotten. However, what becomes a desperate search for hope, becomes a nightmare she cannot escape. The best thing Dorinela can do is to barricade herself from the creatures that wish to consume her flesh.

Players will unravel a mystery centred on blood, and Occultism, traversing a beautifully gothic, and blood-soaked castle, where they will solve puzzles, and use resources to protect themselves and evade a variety of stalking fiends.

The best way I can describe Confronted is if the original Amnesia: Dark Decent, meet that random barricade-building mechanic from the COD: Zombie games. What we get is a very polished looking, very beautiful sounding game, that’s dripping in a rich atmosphere, and sheer intensity that I was shook for much of my preview playtime. But instead of having nothing but my fast legs to evade danger, I had a few nails, some wood, and a hidey hole in which I could barricade myself away.

It is silly, and yeah I won’t lie, the idea of putting up some planks of wood while in a box to hide from a monster was indeed, quite silly. I still enjoyed myself, for the most part.

This castle is filled with blood, and spooky sound effects

Upon looking at confronted, I had slightly feared I was getting into a mediocre, walking sim experience with the odd jump-scare. But what I got was a refined, stunning-looking gothic castle, that was brimming in gloom, and high detail, which felt lived in, and suffering from the worst horrific afterparty known to man.

It’s common practice to see nice dynamic lighting, deep, dense shadows, and have all the bells and whistles in the sound effects department. It makes any horror game from good to easily great. What I admired most from Confronted was not only the stunning presentation with its visuals but also the incredible sound design. It’s very easy to miss the importance of good sound design, but Confronted just excels it to magnificence. What I picked up on very early was the layering, the smaller sounds such as rain hitting a stone surface, and the importance and impact of echoes in aiding and terrifying you as you venture through the dark. Even the voice work is pretty darn good, with everyone I’ve seen and heard so far putting in the effort to bring about a dramatic and chilling sense of gravitas, akin to a high and mighty hammer horror film.

The presentation and story were effective in bringing me into this hellish world, with the mystery building in suspense and neat little twists, that I’m eager to see what occurs in chapters 2 and 3. And again, the sound design is simply fantastic, being some of the best in a horror game I’ve heard in a while, with Amnesia: The Bunker being one of the few to come to mind.

Putting wood between me, you, and these bad vibes/sharpy teeth!

So, the gameplay. As mentioned before, imagine playing Amnesia: Dark Decent, and instead of only being able to lock a few doors, and hide in the odd cupboard, you could build your cover, and means of barricading doors to trap your enemies. All the while going about collecting key items and solving puzzles.

This is the core of Confronted, and so far in chapter 1, it’s solid but lost its lustre at the two-hour mark.

The idea is for Dorinela to explore the castle, and when danger is present, lingering nearby, she can find a hollowed-out box, a crawl space, or a hiding space in the wall and cover that from the inside, with a few bits of wood, making it harder for passing enemies to detect her. It’s a novel idea, it has potential, and by the end of chapter 1, I hoped it would be explored more in chapters 2 and 3.

The idea is good, but I feel much more could be done with it. As it stands, you can very happily sneak around, and barricade yourself into a room, and a hiding spot to deter enemies from searching for you, and this is cool. However, when it comes to barricading enemies from actively pursuing you, that doesn’t work so well. I was hoping that towards the end of chapter 1, I would be able to use more resources to make stronger barricades, thus halting my purser for much longer as I would make a getaway. This could have lent into some thrilling chase sequences, but barricades are weak, and as soon as you build them, the enemy is aware of you and within seconds will tear anything, including you to shreds.

There are sadly no items that cause distractions, which would have been also helpful and expanded the stealth gameplay quite a bit, and there is so far only wood as a resource. I do hope in chapter 2, iron becomes a resource, and I can mix components to build better barricades or even other tools.

There is a great foundation here, but more needs to be added in as the game progresses like most games ever made will do with their mechanics over time. I did enjoy the puzzles; these were excellent overall and brought about a nice change of pace.

So, the puzzles are great, the horror aesthetics are creepy and engaging, and while the core gameplay mechanic of barricading needs evolving over the next two chapters, presents a solid foundation for potentially an engrossing and terrifying style of cat-and-mouse gameplay.

(Ah, Rainbow Six Siege meets Amnesia was another combo I could have gone with).

Overall?

Confronted has all the right horror vibes and a compelling gameplay hook that could make it a cult classic, even a legendary one at that. The core gameplay loop of exploring, hiding, and barricading yourself somewhere safe is a neat one, but it needs fleshing out throughout the next two chapters. I am very keen to see where this goes, from the story to barricading gameplay, and hope it won’t be too long before I can barricade myself away and shield myself from the horror of normal life- scary monsters …  

Confronted is out on Steam early access.