Blair Witch Review

Every once in a while, one of those horror games comes along that gets mythologized as a harrowing experience best left alone by anyone without a taste for relentless, oppressive fear. Blair Witch

definitely deserves a spot in that pantheon alongside Amnesia, Silent Hill, and their like. The many ways it manages to build tension and make me wonder if I’m losing my mind with a fairly simple premise of being lost in some woods creates a wonderfully unsettling journey. And it even manages to break with the tradition of recent horror games by giving you limited ability to confront the nightmares without ever turning into a power fantasy.This trip to the edges of sanity placed me, in first-person perspective, back in the Black Hills Forest of the classic 1999 film The Blair Witch Project. It’s rendered here in an eerie, muted color palette that adds to a sense of foreboding and helplessness with its spindly, grasping trees and rich but subtle sound design. During the day, I always got the impression that I was being watched, or that I wasn’t supposed to be there. At night, everything transforms into an oppressive, heart-pounding, sometimes disorienting nightmare that made me long for the limited relief the sun’s rays could bring.

video loading...

And, true to the spirit of the franchise, the environments aren’t afraid to play disorienting tricks on your mind by having paths loop back to places they shouldn’t or moving key landmarks you thought you could use for navigation, so I was never fully able to get my bearings and map the area out in my head. While all of that is slightly frustrating, I found this to be very appropriate to the kind of mood that was being evoked.

I appreciated the level of reverence shown for the original film as well, from little visual nods to a downright hellishly terrifying sequence that takes place in that old house from the finale. Blair Witch also fearlessly expands on the mythology while remaining respectful to some of the key premises, like the witch herself always existing as more of a malevolent presence than a monster that comes out to chase you.

Ellis, the voiced protagonist, has his own complex, layered, and bone-chilling backstory to discover along the way. As someone with firsthand experience of post-traumatic stress and panic attacks, this is probably one of the most accurate artistic depictions I’ve seen of those things. It was almost too real at some points, and I would caution others with similar experiences to be aware of that before jumping in.

The major inclusion that makes it bearable is Bullet, your good boye German shepherd.


The major inclusion that makes it bearable is Bullet, your good boye German shepherd who is ever alert for hidden items, can be used to follow scent trails from objective to objective, and even warns you with a low growl when danger is near. Sure, his AI isn’t perfect, and there were a few times when he either got stuck on the other side of a doorway or had to perform some kind of complicated dance to line himself up and get through a small opening. But he’s a welcome companion traipsing through the dark, oppressive underbrush and gave me a way to bring down my real world heart rate with some nice ear scratches after particularly stressful segments. Not only can you pet the dog in Blair Witch, you should, as how you treat him can also affect the ending.

I’m told there are at least four possible endings, though I was only able to see one across multiple playthroughs of the story, which took me a little over a dozen hours the first time through when I was trying to be through. This one was hauntingly bleak, though quite appropriate to the spirit of the franchise. I was a little frustrated with how unclear it was what I needed to do to unlock the others, though. Even trying to speedrun through a second time and do things a bit differently (you can get to the end in a handful of hours if you know where to go and really haul ass), I ended up with the same result.

It seems like it would take a very thorough combing of the environment to get a different ending.


If you take your time there are collectible items like photos of the witch’s previous victims and military dog tags scattered across the map, but nothing to indicate how many you have left to collect or when you’re “done” with an area. I’m not even sure if the photos have anything to do with which ending you get, honestly – that’s just my best guess right now. Especially since the levels are so large, disorienting, and sometimes don’t even follow sensible laws of physics, it seems like it would take a very thorough combing of the environment to get a different ending. And I’m not sure I’d have the patience or the stomach to do so without a guide.
The other non-supernatural hazard I ran into more than once was getting stuck on the terrain. At least three times in my first playthrough I became so stuck that I had to reload an earlier save to free myself. This was usually more annoying than scary, though at one point it happened while something in the woods was trying to kill me and created an unintentionally heart-wrenching experience. Bullet can also occasionally get stuck, but he seems to at least have some magical way to teleport out of it that I wish he’d been willing to share with me. Come on, boy. Why you holding out on me like that?

video loading...

There is also sort of a combat system, but it’s hard to even talk about it without spoiling some of the better surprises. Suffice to say that Blair Witch differentiates itself from other horror games in that you’ll almost never be running from anything. Every enemy requires either tense confrontation or teeth-clenching stealth to get past. There’s even a segment that borrows the night vision camcorder mechanic we saw in Outlast, but I’d say Blair Witch actually does it much better. There were a couple segments that felt like they relied a bit too much on cheap jump scares, or where things went from spooky to straight-up psychedelic in a way that harshed my horror buzz, but that was the exception rather than the rule.

All the while, the sound design and music are expertly poised to enhance the tension and terror around every turn. If you’re an aficionado of this type of game, you probably already know that they’re meant to be played in as dark a room as possible with some good, around-ear headphones to get the most out of what’s been carefully arranged to creep you out. Menacing whispers, the crunch of dry branches, foreboding basso melodies, and the reassuring panting that reminds you Bullet is nearby each served to transport me into the witch’s dread domain.

source: ign.com