Lazaret is probably the most toothless horror game i've ever played, if you can even call it one. It is a tedious, needlesly overextended collectathon with no music, no characters, no story, but at least a bit of atmosphere.

The first 30-60 min are actually pretty good. The rocking of the ship coupled with pretty good graphics, ambience of the storm and various noises of the ship do create a tense atmosphere. Strange mannequin creatures hide in the darkness of the ship, waiting to ambush you. Most of them are inactive, but you can discern the hostile ones with a whistle. But there's also a more conventional enemy stalking the ship in the form of a massive brute in a diving helmet. Presence of both would set up an interesting detection dynamic, where you need to make noise to look for stationary enemies, but also stay quiet to hide from the big guy.

In practice you spend 95% of the game with mannequins only, while the big guy and another enemy show up for the scripted events a few times. Whistling is pointless, because the active ones start slowly walking toward you when you turn your back to them. Very slowly. If you walk up to a hostile one, they grab you, shake the camera, and then throw you on the ground. If you do it agian, the same thing happens. And again. And again. I decided to test how many grabs it takes for a mannequin to kill me and just kept bumping into one. I stopped after 30. They don't kill you, they don't steal your items, they don't infect you with anything for a worse ending, nothing. In fact, there's no health system at all. You get a bloody outline after a few grabs, and that's it.

As for other enemies, they don't fare any better. The big guy only shows up at the start and at the end, both times being heavily scripted, legally blind and illegally stupid. He doesn't actually patrol the area you are in. He shows up for a scripted event, walks out of view and evaporates. If he does notice you, he pretends to chase you until you go behind a corner, then he loses you. There're hiding lockers scattered throughout the game, but in the 3-ish hours it took me to beat it i only used them twice. At the start, when the game liteally tells you to hide in one, and by the end, when the big guy shows up for a second time.

Actually, i had a pretty funny encounter with him. There's a moment when he bursts through the wall as if he is in an actual horror game and then chases you. I did a loop around and backed myself into a gym with 2 mannequins behind me. One of them turned out to be hostile and grabbed me. "Oh wow, synergy between the monsters!"- i thought. - "Now the big guy is going to come over and finish me while i'm stunned by the mannequin." I get up, turn around, and see... nothing. The big guy just went past me into a corridor and disappeared. I was so disappointed.

The last enemy is a wierd insect thing that you mostly catch glimpses of and only meet twice, both of which are a scripted "chase".


The gameplay of Lazaret consists of endlessly looking for something. Find a key to open a door to grab a spare part to fix a mechanism to open another door to find another key to open a drawer to find a combination for a safe with another key for one more door to a room with a puzzle that needs more items that are in other locked rooms and...
Reading that sentence feels about as accurate as playing the game. At least the puzzles aren't torturous.


If there's one thing i can praise the game for besides the intro section is making a number of good set ups to tense situations. Unfortunately, it fails to pay off any of them because you are in no actual danger.

There's a moment where you go through a convoluted bit of narrow tunnels, the walls of which are lined with mannequin enemies. Going through it the first time is would be tense enough, but later you have to traverse the same bit with no flashlight. You keep scrambling through the dark, bumping into one dead end after another while monsters to the sides crack their necks to look at you and one more slowly follows in your steps. Well, you can easily outrun the guy, and others don't even attack you.

There's another moment when you lose your flashligh and have to go through the den of an insect monster with flares instead. You find the body that has the item you need, only to see it snatched through a hole in the wall. "Oh no, i have to go in there, do i?" - you think, anticipating a long claustrophobic crawl through intrails of the ship. Well, actually, the flares are infinite, burn forever, the crawl-in-the-hole segment barely lasts 30 sec. and the monster itself only shows up at the end of the section.

In conclusion, i cannot recommend Lazaret to anyone, no matter the price. And honestly, i'm baffled to see it at +80% positive when it barely quilifies as a horror.