Horror scenes weaved from the circuits of analog technology, such as VHS tapes, old cameras and FM radios, are often presented as if they weren’t meant to be discovered. They’re the likes of snuff films and lost-and-found video footage, their brand of gurgled speech and degraded images as unsettling as it is illicit. Then there’s the recent surge of PS1 horror games. These can be just as disconcerting, given their cast of characters’ uncannily angular faces, distorted environments and cracking textures – almost as if these are bootleg or unreleased games warped by an unknown, malevolent force.
The Tartarus Key reviewDeveloper: Vertical ReachPublisher: Armor Games StudiosPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out 31 May on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam, itch, GOG)
The Tartarus Key wants to conjure the same dreadful eeriness of these games, but without resorting to cheap jump scares. To that effect it’s cloaked in the coarse, aliased graphics of a PS1 game, while its story is delivered within a tantalisingly spooky setting and a hefty dose of puzzles to crack. As a gig worker named Alex Young, you have woken up in an excessively baroque mansion, furnished with musky books and dusty furniture, rather than the familiar comforts of home. You spy a radio on a table, a postcard tucked away in the crevices of a sofa, a locked safe, and a door that’s jammed shut. Amidst the radio static, a disembodied voice would tell you that they are in the same predicament, and your first step is to find a way out of the room. A security camera watches your every move, its lens fixed on you as you gather scraps and clues, unravel their meaning, and unlock the door.
Only when you do, you’ll find yourself in yet another locked room. And another. And another.
Unfortunately, this repetition – and eventually, familiarity – is largely what keeps The Tartarus Key pretty placid, its initially unsettling atmosphere never peaking beyond an unobtrusive level. This is unlike, say, a game like P.T., the demo for a Silent Hill game that never saw the light of day, which simply comprised of a single hallway you pace across over and over again. By gradually introducing small changes to an increasingly familiar loop, P.T. was able to instil a sense of creeping unease, but The Tartarus Key is just one giant escape room game, mostly devoid of the cloying dread of the horror games it takes inspiration from. It wears the PS1 horror aesthetics without delivering on the spooks. This isn’t necessarily a fatal flaw, since The Tartarus Key does have some puzzles that serve as engaging brain teasers. But I’m not sure if it’s high praise to suggest that a horror game is tantamount to a relaxing puzzle box you can while away your lazy afternoons with.