Hollowbody Review
“Anything BUT a Hollow Experience” Written by: Hunter (@ReaperHunter23)
I have been following the development of Hollowbody since 2022. I discovered it just late enough that I could not back it on kickstarter, but I eagerly anticipated its release all the same. The game is pitched as a throwback to the PlayStation 2 era of survival horror games with a tech-noir twist to the setting. The game is out now so let's take a look to see if it was worth the wait.
Image Credit: Headware Games
Hollowbody takes place in a distant dystopian future version of the United Kingdom. A bioterrorism attack before the events of the game devastated most of the western coast and the survivors had to flee to the walled quarantined city of Aeonis.
The story proper starts 60 years after the devastation and puts us in the shoes of a smuggler named Mica. Mica sets off looking for her friend Sasha, who disappeared during a research excursion beyond the walls of Aeonis. Mica’s car crashes and she’s forced to make her way through the dilapidated city outskirts on foot. As the game progresses there are small flashback scenes of Mica reminiscing about Sasha in between the esoteric weirdness of the story.
You find documents and radio recordings of what life was like for the former residents before their untimely end. I think the game does a great job with the radio logs. All of them paint a really vivid picture of what the life of the subject was like. The fifth signal in particular really stuck out to me for how well done it was.
Mica herself is a solid protagonist. She falls perfectly into the “Regular person with humorous personality quirks” niche pretty well. For example: Her inner monologue is littered with amusingly close to home reactions such as “No way I’m touching that, who knows what manner of infection it carries”. As well as a pretty tremendous disdain for taking a bath instead of showering, which amused me to no end. When the likable inner monologue comes together with her determination to find Sasha, it makes Mica pretty easy to root for.
Image Credit: Headware Games
As mentioned before, Hollowbody presents itself like a throwback to the PS2 era of horror games. I would wager to say that it is more of the psychological flavor of horror, rather than hard survival. What I’m getting at is that as long as you don’t take it upon yourself to kill every enemy you come across, you should get by alright. Health and ammo drops are balanced pretty well. I don’t remember ever trying to pick up ammo and being told I was already holding too much of it, and I do recall a couple of instances where I went long stretches without any health items.
The combat options consist of a pistol and shotgun. The guns are unwieldy in the right kind of way for a game like this. There are also a couple of melee options. Mica can find makeshift weapons such as a guitar or street sign. Each melee weapon had their own set of a couple of animations rather than just a repeating back and forth swing. This meant that I had to actually engage with the timing of the enemy’s attacks rather than just flailing wildly until they were dead.
I found myself taking notice of the unique enemy AI throughout the game. In most horror games, it usually seems like the monsters will be on a set path and only deviate from it once you venture too close to them. In Hollowbody, the creatures seem to roam much more freely. This led to a moment later in the game where during an instance of backtracking, there was a handful of enemies that I had previously evaded all converged on a fork in the path. It was a manner of surprise that doesn’t usually happen when I play this kind of game.
Hollowbody settles into a pretty consistent rhythm as far as the gameplay loop is concerned. The opened ended ruined city environment acts as the connective tissue between the more narrowed down and specific levels or dungeons, for lack of a better term. The dungeons are where you will usually be solving puzzles and looking for the increasingly weird key items to open the horror doors to progress. These are the areas that will also push you into the harder to avoid enemy encounters.
It is a very well put together game. The first portion of the city and the apartment level are both excellent slow burns to the first enemy encounter and the introductory puzzles that the player will be solving. From there each area adds on another layer of complexity or intensity. I will give special mention to the sewer level for being one of the least tedious and most easy to navigate sewer levels I’ve played in a horror game. Regardless of what point of the game I was in, I was motivated to search every corner I could for supplies or a lore document. And I was always interested in seeing where the game would take me next.
Image Credit: Headware Games
Hollowbody absolutely nails the PS2 era aesthetic it is going for. It is so committed to the bit that it honestly feels like the kind of game that I just would pull off my shelf and suddenly remember it was in my collection. The color palette and even details such as the texture of the water really sell the illusion. Other extra details include the momentary screen blackening between rooms to simulate loading from zone to zone.
Atmospherically, the game really nails what its going for. The fixed camera angles manage to set up some really good shots. There’s a shot at the beginning of the game that I really liked. You are searching for one of your expedition members while this massive cave looms ominously in the majority of the image and there’s a gas mask right in the foreground. It was one of the most striking visuals in the game.
It always impresses me when a horror game manages to look so grimy that it conveys a sense of what it would probably smell like. The entirety of the apartment level I was thinking “Wow this place looks like it would smell like a combination of damp basement and rotten eggs in the water.” There’s also this black ichor that manifests itself throughout the game. It's often described by Mica as spreading in a way that’s similar to mold and it served as the cherry on top of the dilapidation cake.
The voice acting that’s present in this game is really solid. Kirsten Riaa’s performance as Mica is really well done. She sells the appropriate combination of tired and progressively more terrified as the game progresses. The voice acting in the radio signals was really well done too. Signal 5 with the two ladies that used to occupy the abandoned house was genuinely quite captivating. The one with the kid being told off by the Security agent at the playground was also really well performed.
Image Credit: Headware Games
Summary
Hollowbody is an easy recommendation if you are a fan of horror games. And also just a rather impressive game when taking into account that it was made by a solo developer. I think one of the game’s biggest strengths is that despite being committed to being a throwback kind of game, it knows when to break the illusion. It is a game that is self aware of its niche and knows just where to throw in a twist. By no means do you need to be a survival horror expert to enjoy the game. But if you are a fan of the genre there’s enough here to keep you on your toes. There were a number of times the game zigged when I thought it was going to zag. These twists combined with a solid gameplay foundation and great atmosphere made Hollowbody intriguing throughout the entire experience.