Teetering on the edge of horror brilliance, Bloober Team has consistently missed the mark for me. Even after a frustrating pass through Layers of Fear 2 on the Xbox One, I was oddly eager to see what that team could do with something like the Blair Witch property. This release may have some hangups technically, but this is a step in the right direction.
Blair Witch takes place after the events of the original Blair Witch Project film in which a war veteran named Ellis assists a search party looking for a missing boy named Peter Shannon. With Bullet, a trusty canine, by his side Ellis strikes out in the wilderness to find the boy, believing that he’s the only one with the courage and capabilities to save him.
Along the way, Ellis finds a tape recorder and quickly discovers that the footage can alter reality. This is introduced simply in a situation where the footage shows a small police car that when it pops up on the screen can be seen just behind it, alerting the player that it has appeared. This mechanic never really goes into much depth but the instances where it is used are fun to discover and each tape feels tense. I think that Resident Evil 7 had much better use of tapes but Blair Witch did well enough with the idea.
Aside from tapes, players will be picking up objects, documents, litter, and photos of presumed victims of the witch. These photos eventually led to a bunch of people with Bloober Team jackets, so I’m assuming that many of the photos are of the development team. There’s also a walkie-talkie and an old Nokia-style cell phone that does have two games to play, one being a Space Invaders style game and another being Snake. Both are fun distractions and it is nostalgic to be handling one of those phones again. These items also lead to some creepy text messages, phone calls, and radio chatter.
Scares mostly come from the twisted tree monsters that dart about the forest. They are quick and circle the player like eerie wolves, often fluttering just out of the corner of one’s eyes. They can be dispatched by holding a flashlight on them and with enough flashes, they shatter. They can be pretty vicious but Bullet is good about barking and growling at them to help locate them in the thick wilderness.
Bullet can be commanded, reprimanded, pet, and given treats. Apparently how one treats the dog can slightly alter the ending of the game, albeit I later learned that this difference was extremely minor. I found Bullet to be a huge comfort when braving the darkness, a crutch almost that makes the last act of the game that much more terrifying.
Many horror game players do want to know if these games are scary and I would say that during my time with Blair Witch I was far more tense and apprehensive than I was with Layers of Fear 2. That said, this isn’t the scariest game I’ve played, although the last portion of the game did force me to shy away from the screen when I felt a scare coming and take off one side of my headphones. Those more familiar with the Blair Witch lore may feel that fear more intensely. I’ve not seen the films but I have listened to several interviews, stories, and more.
Shoutouts to the Here’s Johnny and American Hysteria podcasts for having some great content around the Blair Witch franchise.
I almost didn’t even commit to playing this game though. Initially, I was sent a code for the Xbox One (I was playing on an Xbox One S) but I found the framerate to be so poor with screen tearing and awful pop-in that I asked if there was a patch or something coming soon. I also asked if I could play the PC version on Steam in hopes that it would perform better. Thankfully on Steam, after some fiddling with the more robust graphics options, I was able to get an enjoyable performance.
Graphically, Blair Witch fluctuates between pretty great to kind of basic. Parts of the forest, especially when the light hits just right, takes me back to my days of wandering the hills of West Virginia as a teen. My cousin and I would hike up rocky cliffs and build forts, plus I would go hunting in a nearby area. Come to think of it, there were some abandoned buildings and shacks.
It’s a good thing I hadn’t seen Blair Witch Project as a kid. . .
Character models look alright; the monsters look the best particularly in the dark. In horror, I’m always hoping for a higher graphical fidelity thanks to P.T. and Resident Evil 7 so my bar is unfortunately set pretty high. Graphics aside, I did eventually find myself being pulled into the experience thanks to the complex sound design. General forest noises like birds, wind, animals, all help make the player feel grounded.
Eventually, the sounds and sights start playing tricks. One of my favorite segments involved walking through fog and keeping the camera up on the bottom right of the screen to follow an invisible trail. In my peripheral vision, I kept seeing movement and eventually caught the slinking tree monsters peeking just over a rise in the landscape. Their whispering sounds also sent shivers down my back.
The story beats are well-paced too, eventually leading to a lot of dread and realization of something much worse than the monsters being kept at bay. There are layers of illusions, spooky soundscapes, and some of the world-altering that has defined Bloober Team. Things really get crazy towards the end and even though that section has some rough spots it ties everything together pretty well.
Once I finished the game, which only took about four hours or less, I immediately wanted to know how to get into an area that’s teased early on. I eventually found the code, got into the area, and discovered a bit of satisfying lore and a note that hinted at another way to clear the game. Even though I didn’t play through that run, the idea of it is really cool and adds more replay value to a rather short experience.
Sure there are things to collect and achievements to unlock but this is a distilled game with a particular goal and I think it achieves it well enough. Blair Witch could’ve been better but overall it’s an interesting take on wandering through the dark woods, a trope that so many horror games attempt, but rarely succeed at.
I hope that the performance issues can be ironed out on the Xbox One version. Judging by the various comments and message boards, it looks like the initial release was rocky across all platforms. If anything, I was able to play without crashes or major glitches on Steam on a GeForce GTX 1080.
Blair Witch is an improvement over Bloober Team’s past work and I hope to see them further explore more game mechanics in their titles. Even though they’re good at perception-altering visuals, I want to see them branch out more and more. I think that one day in the future, Bloober Team could release a truly knockout horror game.
Blair Witch is not that but one has to get runners on all the bases before there can be a grand slam.
For more information on Blair Witch, check out the official website. A digital Steam and Xbox copy were provided for the purpose of review. Screenshots were taken using the Steam screenshot function.
