Static Dread: The Submarine

I was excited when I first tested out the demo, and the released game did not disappoint. Yet another fantastic game as part of the Static Dread series! While I missed some of the eerie atmosphere that was in Static Dread: The Lighthouse, The Submarine is nonetheless an exciting exploration into what new avenues to take with the series. It's balance of good storytelling, somewhat claustrophobic stress and what horrors may be both within and without makes it a compelling game where I've at least got a result I felt satisfied with. I hope to see even more from the Static Dread universe. I'll definitely be there for the next one, too!

You'll like this if you dig tense decision-based horror. It's a solid Eldritch Horror piece with some really good writing, good voice acting, the setting and game mechanics are solid and it doesn't hold your hand so much that you feel like it's patronizing - but it's simple enough that you can easily figure out what you're doing. There are action sequences and they're solid, which is something the first game did not really experiment with. They could be a bit more thoughtful or engaging, with most of the action-oriented objectives pushing away from the "Papers Please" nature of the first, but I think they were overall good! Good game overall, I do recommend - worth the time! It improves and experiments on a lot from the first game. **SPOILERS AHEAD** I do have some critiques. I would HIGHLY recommend that you play the first game FIRST. This game's story does not work as well without context from "The Lighthouse". You can still enjoy it, I'm sure, but appearances from The Boy In Yellow and some other references don't feel like they fit organically. The "good" ending I got was, hands down, the worst part of the experience for me. A lot of the game is good, some parts you vibe with and some not that's natural - but adding an element of time travel at the end and convincing the Captain to stand down just based on good vibes was just a ruined orgasm of an ending. I think I see what they were going for with it, but I felt robbed of having any real consequences from myself or the other surviving crewmates. I do look forward to playing it again and intentionally trying for a less "perfect" ending, but having a moment of literally riding into the sunset in a Lovecraftian horror game was a total hijacking of the emotional tone of the story. It did not feel genuine, it didn't feel good, it just felt like something written for an obligatory "We want you to feel good about doing things correctly". I'm going to guess from the ending also that they'll be making a third Static Dread set in a hospital from some dialogue at the end. I truly hope they build off the first one a bit more and take the elements from this one that really rocked. Looking forward to it, but critically disappointed in the ending.