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There are a few different types of horror games. Some are very action-oriented such as Dead Space or The Callisto Protocol, where you fight hordes of gory, mutated monsters. Others have you play as a helpless victim, but are more adrenaline-fuelled, such as Outlast or Five Nights at Freddy’s. Then there are psychological horror games, with enemies that cannot be killed, and truly petrify you as the player. Ad Infinitum falls into the third category, and is one of the creepiest, most atmospheric games I’ve ever played.
You play as a German soldier whose experience of the Great War was short, and very much not sweet at all. The very first level had me following the orders of our disembodied sergeant, as he ordered my unit to join the battle on the frontline. I didn’t last for very long though; despite having a rifle that I could fire, there was nobody to shoot at, before an explosion sent me flying into some barbed wire.
From here, the game is a mixture of supernatural terrors and reliving the trauma suffered during the war. Waking in a huge mansion, I explored every single nook and cranny I could find for hints on what to do next. The ambient, chilling music had me on edge the entire time – despite the fact I knew there were no enemies in this area, it set the scene so perfectly in making me uncomfortable.
The solution to progressing the story involved finding parts of an orchestrion to get it working again, but the second I fixed it, blood-curdling screams from elsewhere in the house began. I then created a seance, complete with a human-sized dummy sitting opposite a pentagram, following instructions from what seems to be a recording, until it starts reacting to the supernatural events that are happening. After a brief cutscene teasing a monster, I followed a hooded figure leaving a trail of blood through the mansion and into a bathroom. From within the bath, a hand reached out and grabbed me.
Speaking about it so matter-of-factly may make this initial hour of Ad Infinitum seem blase, but there’s something to be said for the environments developer Hekate has created. Everything is very Amnesia-esque, from the deformed monsters that will chase you in the later levels to the puzzles you have to solve while exploring so methodically. Even the mansion, a location you’ll continuously return to throughout the game as you unlock more doors, had an air of Brennenburg Castle about it.
If you’re easily unsettled, Ad Infinitum isn’t going to be the experience for you. I very much fall into that category – playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done. And Ad Infinitum reminds me of that so very much, to the point where I absolutely will not be playing it when it fully launches, but that means it’s done its job, because I’m not the target audience. Those of you who love the genre will find another entry that is worth playing when Ad Infinitum launches for PC and consoles in September 2023.
Check out another of our previews from the same event, where we went hands-on with RoboCop: Rogue City, a game that is wearing its Deus Ex inspiration on its sleeve.
