BrokenLore: Unfollow

Do you enjoy being chased by grotesque creatures that may or may not be your mother or the person who bullied you at school? Running around between giant, towering bookshelves in a confusing house, or between the cupboards in an empty school? Then BrokenLore: Unfollow is just the thing for you. Personally, I'm not quite sure how much I enjoyed the experience now that the dust has settled, so let's quickly get this out of the way.

BrokenLore: Unfollow starts with you waking up in an unfamiliar house on an unfamiliar day, with no idea what's going on - classic. You play as Anne, who must explore the empty and creepy house and figure out what's happening. After finding a torch and batteries so you can venture down into the overly dark basement, the game really begins. Here, you move around between various bookshelves and encounter a ghostly creature that is very keen to get its hands on you. Literally. The creature grabs you and disorients you, after which you run away again. It's pretty silly and clumsy, but it's a theme that, despite a bit of mechanical unevenness, I dreaded every single sequence with close bookshelves because I knew there would be a chase sequence with a more or less inhuman creature. That said, and it should be said when a horror game tries the same trick several times, it got old very quickly, and I knew almost immediately when I entered a new area whether there would be a chase. And spoilers: there was every time.

Overall, there are many repetitions. For example, there are several episodes with a kind of snake skull creature, which also drains the game of effectiveness. Almost no matter where you go in the game, there are repetitions of the same mechanics and structures, and I must admit that it gets a bit tiresome in the end. This creature, which is a mixture of a skull and a snake, bursts into almost every level you are in and says it wants something to eat. Therefore, you have to run through the entire area and find something for it to eat. The game follows the same pattern over and over again, and you very quickly begin to figure out what's going to happen around the next corner. Some horror games use this slightly monotonous repetition to create suspense, but that's not the case here.

Something about the story that I do find positive, however, is that the game tackles some pretty heavy topics such as bullying, anorexia and parents who fail to be there for their children. The game is very strange and filled with grotesque monsters that chase you throughout the game, but if you scratch a little beneath the surface, many of these themes are connected to the creatures you encounter. For example, you are chased by your grandmother at the beginning of the game, and later also by your mother, who has clearly failed in her role as a parent. Anne, the character you play, clearly hasn't had an easy upbringing. The developers have tried to show this through the monsters that you, pardon the expression, have to run away from again and again. I think this is a cool idea in itself, creating a connection between the grotesque and the recognisable.

In addition, there are many mysteries that cannot be fully explained by the story alone. Suddenly, for example, you meet an influencer named Aki, who is mysteriously trapped in your television and later also on your laptop screen. Anne has ambitions to become the next big influencer herself, and her demons are linked to the things she has struggled with throughout her childhood. For example, you find comics where she is bullied about her weight, and you witness a flashback with her mother and the school principal, where it becomes clear that she weighs too much. When you try to put it all together into one cohesive narrative, I think it becomes a mixture of both good and not-so-good ideas. It all feels jumbled together in one big mess, and the game therefore lacks focus. It's a shame, because there is clearly potential here, but for me there were simply too many balls in the air at the same time.

I must also admit that I enjoyed certain parts of the game, while at other times I almost didn't want to continue playing. In particular, the chase sequences between bookshelves, cupboards and strange corridors quickly became more annoying than scary. It ended up being something that just had to be endured in order to progress in the game. I think the developers wanted it to be chaotic and stressful, but for me it actually had the opposite effect.

The game is played in first person, so you see everything through Anne's eyes, which makes the experience very intimate. For me, however, there was the problem that the controls felt imprecise. When you control the game with the mouse, there is a delay in the movement, so the camera feels as if it is floating slightly behind. I'm not quite sure how else to explain it, but it almost felt as if the camera was sliding along in an oily motion. It was quite frustrating, especially when you were being chased and had to navigate narrow passages between bookcases and cupboards. It's not ideal, and I don't think I'm the only one who gets tired of these chase sequences. The inspiration clearly comes from Resident Evil 7 and 8, but those games just do it better.

Graphically, the game is very mediocre, I would say, and there aren't many graphics settings you can adjust. It all looks a bit low-quality, and in fact, the game also stutters quite a bit in the strangest places. When a game that doesn't look particularly heavy graphically still requires so much, it could have used some more optimisation. Not that I demand ray tracing in everything, but it could be done better than BrokenLore Unfollow. However, I won't criticise the music too much. It does what it's supposed to do. Sometimes there is heavy orchestral music, especially during the chase sequences, and when you're just walking around exploring your surroundings, there are mainly atmospheric sounds. The voice acting is actually fine, and I don't really have anything to complain about here.

So I would recommend BrokenLore Unfollow. Yes, if you're craving a shot of Resident Evil right here and now, you can get some entertaining hours out of BrokenLore Unfollow. But personally, I'd rather wait for Resident Evil 9 to come out. BrokenLore Unfollow feels mostly like a mediocre copy of better games.