Reveil Review – Circus of Nightmares

There’s been no shortage of first-person psychological horror games over the last decade. In fact, there’s been an absolute deluge of them – so standing out in that very crowded space can be tough, to put it lightly. Pixelsplit’s Reveil succeeds at that in some ways, but fails in others. In many ways, it treads on ground that has become so familiar by now that it has started losing most of its impact, but in others, it puts its own unique twist on things to breathe new life into them.

In Reveil, you play as Walter, a man who runs a circus with his wife, his begins the game getting out of his bed and complaining about a headache. Walking through his house, he realizes that neither his wife nor his daughter are anywhere to be found, and from there, things quickly take a turn, as you find yourself walking through surreal, fragmented versions of Walter’s house and his circus and living through memories of his life, which often contradict what he remembers himself in key ways. It’s not necessarily a unique setup, and if you’ve played enough games like this before, it’s very likely that you’re going to have a good understanding of how things are going to go.

"In many ways, it treads on ground that has become so familiar by now that it has started losing most of its impact, but in others, it puts its own unique twist on things to breathe new life into them."

From the story it tells to the way it tells it, Reveil doesn’t do an awful lot to break the mould, and that predictability does take out a lot of the bite from the story it’s trying to tell. The quality of the storytelling is dragged down further by an unfortunate combination of poor writing and voice acting. The dialogue feels a bit too on-the-nose at times, and often comes in at times where silent, environmental storytelling would have been much more effective, especially in a game like this one. The issue is exacerbated further by the way dialogue is voiced- pretty much all the time, Walter sounds either too casual or too content, which just completely clashes with the atmosphere, the things the story reveals, and the increasingly bizarre environments you find yourself in.

What does help a little bit is the whole circus angle, which is one area where the game carves out a little but of its own identity. Reveil sees you walking through repeated loops of a handful of environments that shift and change each time in different ways, and a lot of the time is going to be spent in Walter’s circus. Even in their mundane, regular form, which you see a little bit of in the game’s earlier sections, just walking through a circus and taking in the environments is fun, but as the environments start twisting and becoming more and more surreal as you progress further, things get even more interesting.

There’s some really good, striking imagery in Reveil. The way the environments twist and loop and distort around you deserves a lot of praise, even if it’s not necessarily something that we haven’t seen before in similar games, simply because of how well those well-trodden ideas are executed here. One particular section throws you into a mirror maze and tasks you with finding your way out, with things getting increasingly creepier and more unsettling as you progress further. Reveil has some really effective tricks that it consistently keeps using to disorient you as you walk through its environments.

"There’s some really good, striking imagery in Reveil. The way the environments twist and loop and distort around you deserves a lot of praise, even if it’s not necessarily something that we haven’t seen before in similar games, simply because of how well those well-trodden ideas are executed here."

That adds a great deal to the atmosphere as well, an area where the game by and large sticks the landing. Again, the general feeling of tension or horror is dampened severely by fact that Walter never seems to shut up, and that his writing and voice acting tend to miss the mark every time he speaks. But the environments themselves do a solid job of unsettling you in some really interesting ways. That said, you shouldn’t go in expecting genuine scares. Other than quite a few annoyingly cheap jump scares scattered throughout the experience, Reveil tends to focus more on atmosphere than actual, active horror.

On the gameplay front, I had a surprisingly fun time with Reveil. It’s a simple, straightforward game where its mechanics are concerned, and the bulk of it functions like a walking sim, as you’d expect from this genre. Thanks to the strong environment design of the game, that remains an engaging experience in and of itself, but there are some other activities thrown in there to break things up as well. You’ll encounter a fair few puzzles, and though some of them can be a bit obtuse at first, by and large, they’re all fun and simple interactions, with a few that even involve some fun minigames.

At times, Reveil will also attempt to challenge you with stealth and pursuer enemy sections- though “challenge” is perhaps too strong of a word. Engagement is minimal here, thanks to the rudimentary enemy AI, and mostly, these sections just come across as ineffectual attempts at horror. They’re definitely the experience’s weak, from a gameplay standpoint. Beyond that, there are some collectibles to collect and multiple endings to unlock, though mileage will obviously vary on how much you’re getting out of that stuff, based on how much you enjoy the core experience.

"You shouldn’t go in expecting genuine scares. Other than quite a few annoyingly cheap jump scares scattered throughout the experience, Reveil tends to focus more on atmosphere than actual, active horror."

On the technical front, Reveil is largely a solid experience. The environments look great and do a solid job of facilitating the excellent art design, from how bizarre they can look to how much detail they often have crammed into them. The game is let down by a few audio issues though, especially with some weird mixing and abrupt changes in the volume that can take you out of the moment. Sound design can be incredibly important in any game that focuses this much on atmosphere and horror elements, so they’re definitely an issue here.

Ultimately, if you’re just looking for a single playthrough lasting around 3-4 hours (depending on how you play), Reveil does definitely deliver the goods on the front, with a few caveats. It’s not the most original game, thanks to how many P.T.-inspired games we’ve seen (and continue to see), and from clumsy writing and voice acting to ineffectual attempts at horror, the game does let itself down in some ways. But there are also some genuinely good moments in here, be it the memorably designed, surreal environments you often find yourself in, how effective the atmosphere can be at times, or the fun and straightforward nature of most of the gameplay mechanics. Reveil doesn’t set new standards for the genre in any way, shape, or form- but if you have a hankering for another short first-person psychological horror experience, this one is certainly worth a look.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.