Cry of Fear - always alone

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Cry of Fear is a game about hatred and self-loathing and the bitter, cruel, uncaring chains of depression. A lot of people who’ve played horror games have at least heard of this one, and those who haven’t are both missing out and lucky.

I say that with no disrespect; Team Psykskallar’s survival-horror game is both brutal and respectable in it’s depiction of mental illness. The game does not pull its punches, instead choosing to opt for the in-your-face method of strangling you with its often-difficult themes.

You play as Simon, a young man who is (presumably) heading home one night before he is hit by a car. From here, Simon wakes up in an unknown part of town and has to a) figure out where the hell he is and b) figure out where everyone went. Armed with his knife and a cellphone, Simon must navigate increasingly-horrific encounters and use his wits to survive. Find a gun? Take it. Break into an apartment too while you’re there, it might have supplies and a way to get around the numerous roadblocks you’ll hit.

But the gun and knife are given to you for a reason: there may not be people around anymore, but you are by no means alone. Creatures, mangled and broken, stalk the alleys and halls of the city, growing in number and in variety the further you get. Some of them rush at you and scream, wielding knives, forks, all sorts of cruel implements; others rush at you with guns, shooting themselves if they actually manage to reach you.

You, like Simon, are going to be pitted against cruel things and told to grin and bear it. Injured? There are morphine syringes on the ground to use; Simon will jam them into his scarred arms without hesitation. The city doesn’t care about Simon, and Simon doesn’t care about himself.

Alleys and sewers and tunnels will morph into hellish pathways, the few people Simon has the fate of encountering are risks in and of themselves. Do you help the man you’ve been chasing and risk getting hurt or do you play it safe and keep your cards to your chest?

It all culminates in an impressive-if-deeply unsettling story about trauma and pain and the difficulties one has with fighting their internal darkness. Simon hates the world, the world hates Simon. Are the creatures you’re fighting actually real or is all of this one massive psychotic break? What does it mean to be depressed? What does it mean to try and overcome it? What costs are you willing to endure to fight it off, and where is the line going to be drawn?

Everyone has a limit, a bottom, a place where they can fall no further; Cry of Fear asks for Simon to hit that bottom and continue to fall. When you break through the barrel and spiral ever deeper, do you bother fighting to regain what you used to have? Do you give in and let it win? Do you let others help you even when it hurts so deeply to do so?

Each person will answer those questions differently, and to a degree you will be tasked with answering them for Simon. Cry of Fear is not a happy game about healing and improvement - it is a game about being strangled by your thoughts, choked by your brain, and suffocated by your very self. Simon is at the lowest point in his life, and the hellish world he navigates seeks to pull him deeper still.

I do not recommend this game. Not because it is bad, or poorly made, or boring, but because it will ask you to face dark things and demand you decide what sway those things have over someone. It is a well-made and impressive game, because it doesn’t hold back on anything. If you are comfortable with a game that tackles these themes (depression, self-harm, self-worth, and more) then go into it carefully. If you can’t, don’t play it.

I have pages of notes on my playthrough of this game (and I managed to get one of the comparatively happy endings), each page full of encounters and symbolism and meanings for the various stages. Everything about this game (barring the really infuriating train-platforming part at Chapter 5) is worth discussing.

On a side note: I almost made a whole part of this review specifically dedicated to that stupid train section. I hate it, it sucks, why would you do this Team Psykskallar I just have q u e s t i o n s . I just want to t a l k .