Incredible atmosphere, fun and very unique gameplay, pretty engaging narrative and just breathtaking views. Absolutely recommend this to anyone who loves puzzles, exploration and solving mysteries.

A cool, atmospheric and sometimes funny first person puzzle exploration game that is held back by obtuse gameplay and, worst of all, frequent stability issues.

It's clear the developers are taxing the engine as far as it will go and it's led to some areas of the game being borderline unplayable. I'm playing the game on a machine that is well over the recommended system specifications, so the issue seems to be with how overtaxed Source is on this one rather than my machine not being up to snuff. Leads to some areas being filled with frequent crashes to desktop - at their most frequent, I was looking at a hard crash to desktop every few minutes of gameplay, causing me to have to constantly restart the game client.

Also some questionable design choices that are more of a matter of taste - the flashlight and camera are both tied to finite survival horror style resources for much of the game, which seems somewhat at odds with the intent for this game to be a slower paced affair that encourages you to take your time, explore thoroughly and fully take in the sights - the game does massively increase the number of batteries you get later before switching out for a long life flashlight that doesn't need batteries at all, which suggests the developers were well aware the mechanic wasn't particularly well received, or at least wasn't bringing much to the table gameplay wise. The insistence of finite resources against regular puzzle adventure game gameplay continues later, where you're left in a large, buggy area and are given a finite amount of currency that you have to spend continuously to explore, very much not a good idea in my personal opinion!

The positives - MOST of the puzzles are good, make sense and are solvable with a little bit of attention and common sense, a few struggle to convey details to you that are necessary to be solved but almost all can be worked through by just stopping and paying attention to your environment. The voice acting varies from OK to pretty terrible and the story is a mix of grounded and absolutely bonkers - sometimes characters act like reasonable people and sometimes they're space aliens in human form, and it's a bit of a pot luck on how they're going to act at any given moment.

I would normally tentatively recommend this game, however the aforementioned stability issues put this below the threshold for what I would consider a minimal viable product. Check it out if they patch the crashes, but as it stands it doesn't look like it plays well at all on modern hardware.

Possibly some of the most beautiful environments in the old source engine, you can tell a lot of work went into the locations, places to make it really feel alive.

As you move through the locations, you take pictures with your camera and this is quite an interesting experience.
I actually enjoyed having to document damages which may cause security hazards.
Be it from loose concrete, broken bridges, leaking pipes or malfunctioning terminals, this concept is pretty novel as your character remarks about these faults and will contact his agency regarding the damage.

Initially, I was pretty hooked because the game has a great atmosphere and looks decent (it has aged a bit) but crafts an compelling world that invites you to explore.
As mentioned, the facilities that you visit are mysterious and will get your imagination going.

However the game is let down by poor voice acting, some incredible obtuse puzzles, awful platforming paired with slow movement. (Why change HL2s climbing mechanics for this odd "climb up" thing that works only some of the time?)

Some of the later levels become an absolute chore to play through!
I just got bored because every puzzle seems to resolve around pumps and some interface.
There were some intriguing points here and there but it wasn't to exciting.

I love walking simulators and puzzles, but this one did not pass the vibe check.
It was taking more and more time to get from one plotpoint to the other the further into the game I got.
Same goes for puzzles, they got less and less engaging.
The positives - most of the puzzles are good, make sense and are solvable with a little bit of attention and common sense, a few struggle to convey details to you that are necessary to be solved but almost all can be worked through by just stopping and paying attention to your environment.

As a puzzle game it at times can be incredibly obtuse, inconsistent and unrewarding.
You can progress through some levels very quickly with a path to follow is logical and legible, but many levels consist of painful backtracking with unclear motive, and picking up unremarkable and unnamed keys that are vital to progression - with no inventory system or diegetic/non-diegetic hints, the result of many areas leaves me feeling confused, unfulfilled and demotivated.


Game uses a hold crouch and there is no option to use a toggle crouch.
The central mystery is revealed too early to bother continuing on to unravel it or maybe expose it.
There are jumping puzzles and sections which don't work very well because the jump is equivalent to standing on your tip-toes and it feels clunky.
The climbing mechanic doesn't always trigger and like the jumping feels clumsy, awkward and slow.
The worst part is that taking pictures of everything is a core mechanic but, the battery dies after a dozen photos which forces photo rationing.

There are other design absurdities.
Managing flashlight batteries makes sense in survival and horror games, but it's simply daft in an exploration game.
And the fact that your character, after repeated cataclysms and near-death experiences (or in my case, multiple post-death experiences), is expected to continue his trivial job of photographing cement cracks is laughable.

It's clear the developers are taxing the engine as far as it will go and it's led to some areas of the game being borderline unplayable.
FPS drops are constant, the optimization is very bad.
I'm playing the game on a machine that is well over the recommended system specifications, so the issue seems to be with how overtaxed Source is on this one rather than my machine not being up to snuff.
Leads to some areas being filled with frequent crashes to desktop - at their most frequent, some people were looking at a hard crash to desktop every few minutes of gameplay, causing them to have to constantly restart the game client.

I would normally tentatively recommend this game, however the aforementioned stability issues put this below the threshold for what I would consider a minimal viable product.
Check it out if they patch the crashes, but as it stands it doesn't look like it plays well at all on modern hardware.
If its on sale and you enjoy puzzles sure get it, but at full price its not worth the frustrations.
Unfortunately, I can not recommend this game.