The horror genre in gaming has never been more prosperous since the Golden Age of survival horror. Both the indie and AAA spaces have produced some of the best titles in the genre for a long time. With the likes of Resident Evil 7, Dead Space remake, Signalis, Amnesia: The Bunker and many others. But this success is all down to the likes of RE7 and many indie developers over the years, including Invader Studios who back in 2015 were working on an RE2 remake in the Unreal Engine before Capcom stepped in and moved on Daymare 1998. It was a rough, but very promising title, and I had hoped the developers would come back with a sequel …. And they have!
What is Daymare 1994: Sandcastle? 
Sandcastle is the sequel/prequel to the 2019 indie darling Daymare 1998, a game made up of passionate survival horror fans who wanted to recreate a title like that of Resident Evil 2. They both succeeded and failed, but the scope, passion and various creative choices showed there was strong promise with the studio. Now after 4 years, Daymare 1994: Sandcastle is finally out, piecing together the events that led to Daymare 1998. It features the return of the H.A.D.E.S unit which has been sent into Area 51 to a response of a disturbance, and upon arrival, everything goes to Hell.
Taking on the role of Dalila Reyes, a former government spy who is now a member of H.A.D.E.S. (Hexacore Advanced Division for Extraction and Search), players will embark on a shadowy journey through the military labyrinth that is Area 51. After getting separated from the rest of her unit, and discovering a long string of corpses, strange creatures begin to appear and the relentless nightmare of sinister government conspiracies, monstrous lifeforms, and paranoia take hold of Reyes.
Using all your wits, quick reflexes, weapons and handy gadgets you find to take on the horde of beasts that emerge from the darkness. Expect plenty of dangerous monsters, plenty of puzzles, secrets, dimly lit corridors, and spooky figures in the distance, as Daymare 1994: Sandcastle aims to be an immersive survival horror experience.
Upping the ante and then some! 
I felt one of the biggest things to hold back Daymare 1998 was its presentation but did note that it was by a small team of developers. However, the game “really” did look as though it was put together in the Unity engine, with plenty of janks and featuring the worst facial hair I’ve ever seen in a game.
But wow, does Daymare 1994 outshine its predecessor and some other games in both the indie and AAA scene.
Both Invader Studios and Leonardo Inactive have done a phenomenal job at refining the presentation of the original game, with a clearer user interface, improved animations, sleek visuals, and a whole heap of other changes which really make Daymare 1994 feel akin to a AAA title. When you compare the two, you will notice the changes instantly as everything looks more professional.
I was incredibly impressed with the changes, and there is a clear influence of where the changes aspired from. It’s very apparent that the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes have pushed the developers to tone down the UI, and present aspects such as the inventory, HUD and general menus/interactions in a similar manner, and it really pays off. The same goes for things like the cutscenes, where the camera is dynamic, and characters look much more organic, with pained expressions, jittering movements and looks of exhausted anguish. Everything really looks the part for a AAA horror game, and not forgetting to mention the incredible lighting, rich atmosphere, and smooth performance to tie everything together nicely.
Even how the extra content is handled, with challenges, unlockable features for gameplay enhancements and artwork, much like the Resident Evil remakes. Although there could have been some more extras, like new game modes.
But a note for everyone, go for “Performance Mode”. I tend to now go for a higher framerate than quality nowadays, as in most cases the quality is still very good, just without a capped framerate. The quality mode here is not very good, with something that feels below 30 for the framerate at times. Disappointing, to say the least, as while the game looks terrific, it shouldn’t be that demanding ….
But the vast improvements over the original’s UI, and presentation are like night and day, and Daymare 1994 really does give even the biggest AAA games a run for their money.
A classic B Movie plot of murder, deceit, lies, and Aliens 
Now most horror stories tend to share a lot of very common trends, especially for survival horror games. Usually, it’s about people going into places they shouldn’t and having to deal with a long list of disturbing events before they can escape. Daymare 1994 is no different and presents darkly macabre subject matters but hams it up with dramatic flair like any good B-movie. It is overly theatrical and beefed up with horror cliches, yet it has a soul and even plenty of heart at times.
Reyes’ journey through Area 51 is very claustrophobic, and diabolical, featuring numerous shady characters, various twists, turns and the ultimate betrayals that cut through the heart. This plot has everything you can imagine and while it’s not entirely fresh or original, it did keep my interest from beginning to end. The setup it cool, with things only getting progressively worse as Reyes and her team try to complete their objective, only for damning revelations to be revealed throwing a massive blood-soaked spanner into the works.
As I said, it’s all very cliché, with mysterious figures coming out babbling about the end of days and vowing a bloody carnage, and betrayals being thrown at you like a bullet to the cranium. But I liked Reyes and her no-nonsense attitude, but caring persona when things get really bad, making sure her team are looked after even during the worst of times. The villains are campy, and a little over the top, but are very memorable, and the general setup of Area 51 is cool, that it’s a shame not more games take advantage of the place.
However, my main gripes, both minor and more severe, are with the butt-numbing long cutscenes and lack of utilising the location. So, while the cutscenes do in general look amazing, the exchanges of dialogue just feel as though they go on and on for too long. The dialogue is something I feel is a first draft and could have been done with a revision or editing by someone outside of the studios. It’s not bad, but there is usually a lot of exposition, and just waffling on.
You can have a good long exchange, but it must have merit or purpose overall, and not just setting up something which never pays off, or just filler to make the villain or situation more dramatic. Yet the cutscenes are shot very well, and there are a few intriguing exchanges, but much of it just seems ham-fisted to provide more dramatic nonsense.
And then there is the lack of utilising the location, which is a massive letdown. I get it, because it’s Area 51 does not mean you have to go balls to the wall crazy with sci-fi nonsense and all that … but it can help a lot to bring in variety and cool ideas for gameplay.
There is a game from 2005 called Area 51, and while with flaws, does exploit the location to the max, with a trip through the Moon Landing stage, various test labs housing powerful weapons and plenty of creepy, cool alien hubs and mutations in a grounded environment (offices, underground areas). It does use the location well and is very creative.
Daymare 1994 could be set anywhere, as much of the world you go through is industrial hubs, mechanical structures, typical sewers/corridors, and plain warehouses. You do get a few cool areas, such as a prison filled with deadly gas, and residential areas deep underground. But much of it has been seen before and lacks any real character or charm, and just feels overall urban and industrial for too much of the journey. Especially as things with the story do get plenty weird and surreal.
You have once again, stepped into the world of survival horror … good luck 
Daymare 1998 was an interesting beast, as it brought together classic survival horror elements, with more modern-day ones. You had intense resource management, backtracking and looping level design, key hunting, puzzles and brutal combat encounters. It was all there, but the developers added in extra layers such as manually reloading a clip of ammo for your weapons, more linear segments, and switching between characters which all added up to a very cluttered and unfocused experience.
Daymare 1994 strips back a lot of what didn’t work and has a gameplay loop and structure with more focus. Again, you can see plenty of the influences from Resident Evil 2 on Daymare 1994, with simpler yet more engaging mechanics that are easy to grasp and allow for more dynamic gameplay events and actions.
Reyes will have a few tools to deal with the horrors lurking below within Area 51, such as her trusty shotgun and MP5, and a very “Cool” freezing device that stops enemies dead in their tracks and allows her to fight back more effectively. There is a roaster of monsters that will stop Reyes from progressing further into the base and finding the heart of the truth. Expect plenty of puzzles and obstacles that will require lateral thinking, or extreme violence to overcome, and for keen explorers, there are various discoveries waiting that will highly reward you for the extra legwork.
At its core, Daymare 1994 has everything it needs to be a great survival horror, with a couple of neat twists to spice things up. It does things in a much “safer” and more familiar manner that does well on a surface level … but this comes at a price. This cleanup has removed some of the critical charms of the original, not to mention that certain gameplay elements aren’t nearly as evolved as they should be. While Daymare 1998 did falter in some places, it also had an immense sense of creativity in other areas, from its lateral elements, secrets, creature designs and some great moments of looping level design.
For Daymare 1994, the level design is much more linear, with a focus on pursuing objectives in environments with singular paths and minimal meaningful backtracking. From time to time, you do get something that “loops” back, but it’s usually a case of “Start the level, find a locked door, go further to find the key, it’s behind another locked door, go even further to find they key to the key, head back and progress”. There are a few instances like this, and even fewer which incorporate a true classic survival horror framework for level design.
Combat for the most part is serviceable, with some moments of enjoyment, but overall feels quite lacklustre after a few hours in, and is just unbearably infuriating in some key moments. The main issues are the lack of weapons, limited enemy count and the AI which is far too aggressive for its own good. Reyes starts off with her MP5 and shotgun and that’s all you get throughout the game. You do get a better version of the MP5 and weapon upgrades which is neat, but there are no side arms, cool variations of the shotgun, and no exotic weapons at all, aside from the freezing device. It’s a shame there’s not even a powerful handgun or no melee weapons at all, and instead, the reliance on the MP5 (which is pathetically underpowered) and shotgun makes the combat feel quite stale.
The freezing device is indeed a highlight here, with multiple upgrades to install, and being genuinely useful in combat and various puzzles that it’s become one of my favourite gaming bits of gear next to Dead Spaces’s Statis, and the Grip from The Callisto Protocol. I love the freeze mines, and cluster bomb upgrades you can get, and an overpowered charge you get late in the game which was super awesome to use. Shame there weren’t other elements to mix it up with, like using flame rounds of a grenade launcher to melt frozen enemies or freeze large bodies of water to cross from one point to another, to freeze enemies in place. I would have liked more use in puzzles, but its effectiveness in combat is awesome, and really does help.
But this doesn't fully resolve issues with combat ….
While Daymare 1998 was much slower in its pacing, it had the vision of being something like the original Resident Evil games. Where enemies were indeed slower, but the placement was important, and environments could favour them more than you. Here in Daymare 1994, all the enemies are incredibly quick and ultra-aggressive, as they always b-line for you, leaving little to no room in the worse encounters. Everything moves so fast, even some of the larger enemies and the only thing you have is the freezing devices to give you breathing space. But the combat then becomes way too reliant on the freezing device where if it runs out and you don’t have a refill, with 3 or 4 enemies left, then you’re running around waiting for it to recharge and avoiding enemies grabbing you.
These problems are really present in the bigger arena fights, which begs the question, why are there arena-style fights like it’s something from DOOM Eternal? At least in DOOM Eternal or Evil West, you have multiple items of gear to aid you and deal with enemies, and in something like Resident Evil 4, you have more weapons, and better controls to deal with larger crowds.
There is a cool concept where killing one enemy does release a big ball of energy which if not destroyed will go to another corpse and reanimate it, or worse yet go off and make an already present enemy stronger and bulletproof. Thus, meaning you must freeze and destroy them while frozen. But again, this means you need to have the freezing device full.
And I absolutely hate how enemies always charge at you, can grab you within sheer seconds of seeing you, and every time you must play out a button-mashing QTE to break free. It’s so incredibly tedious. At least the Resident Evil 1, and 2 remakes have defensive items to stop zombies. But in smaller situations, the combat is somewhat fun, as your tactical thinking and quick reflexes are tested when deciding who to shoot, and who to freeze and doing the freezing feels immensely satisfying.
But the exploration is pretty good in Daymare 1994 regardless of the more linear manner, with plenty of secrets to discover, from Alien nodding heads (yep, RE remake influence again), lockers with upgrades and additional resources (although the puzzles for these lockers are awful for someone with dyslexia such as myself), and a few more compelling discoveries that will keep you searching and finding. It’s not as intensive as some of the classics, and the scanner Reyes has been fitted with is not utilised nearly enough as it should be, with just a few simple scans of documents and bodies, and all of them pointed out to you. In the original, the scanner was used to find concealed rooms, which was the coolest element of exploration but nothing like that is here.
It's still quite enjoyable skulking around, looking at every nook and cranny to find much-needed ammo, refills, and the odd upgrade for the weapon. And puzzles are varied and enjoyable to figure out, never going overly complicated as a few did in the original title.
Overall?The developers of Daymare 1994: Sandcastle deserve a lot of praise for taking on board the feedback from before and working to refine the user experience and various interfaces into something sleek, professional, and truly AAA quality. The general presentation is very beautiful, the story is enjoyable and hammy, and the focused approach to the gameplay loop is greatly appreciated, with some of the new features like the freezing device adding an extra layer of depth to combat and lateral elements.
However, I feel like this saying “Two steps forward, one step back” applies here to Sandcastle. Or more like “Two steps forward, one step back, and losing your cool wallet in the process”. Daymare 1998 while having some glaring issues, did have a lot of charm and some very fantastic ideas. Much of that charm has been either reworked or removed, to fit something that feels much safer, and less defining. I do like Daymare 1994: Sandcastle and praise the developers for implementing feedback and improvements. But I was also disappointed at the safer approach, the lack of evolution in combat, and the watered-down level design which felt further away from the source material Invader Studios proclaimed their love and admiration for.
I feel the studio has it in them for at least one more horror game, and it should be a cross between the two Daymare titles. Don’t overcomplicate matters with manual reloads, and all that clunkiness, but keep in the weirder puzzles, looping level design and keep in all the improvements seen here in the sequel.
++ Massive improvements in presentation and UI
+ Some neat unlockables
+ Cool setup, and hammy story
+ Decent combat and exploration at the best of times
-- Combat never evolves and can be tedious overall
- Less interesting exploration elements than Daymare 1998
- Could have used more enemies, weapons and unlockable content
A review code for Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle was kindly provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
