My computer recognised this game as a virus. Is my anti-virus software the Past Cure!?
In answer to that, no. No it isn’t. Past Cure is in fact a survival horror/action game currently being developed by Phantom 8 Studio. Upon taking a look at the trailer and screenshots for this, I got The Evil Within and Quantum Break vibes based on the aesthetic. I like survival horror. I also like action. I enjoyed Quantum Break and thought The Evil Within had potential (which its sequel seemed to fulfill) so I decided to give this one a go. It certainly hits some notes from those games in the two short demo levels I tried, and I hope the team manage to bring their vision to life.
The first stage I played was based in the survival horror section of the game, with protagonist Ian waking in a cell within a prison that he apparently finds familiar. With conveniently placed items around the area, children’s drawings on the walls, and puzzles surrounding the crimes of the prisoners, I felt a little Silent Hill inspiration. The way the world reacts as you approach certain areas and the esoteric items that seem to mean something to our character suggest that this is some sort of dream world designed to dredge up memories Ian would rather forget. Very little was revealed in this demo beyond a few notes suggesting psychological testing of some kind, but I’m interested to see where this story may lead.
During this section, we explore the prison and come across a few puzzles. Some were fairly standard, but there was a rather engaging riddle regarding the guilt of different inmates of the prison; I hope the full release has more puzzles like this. On occasion we find some sort of zombie-like creature we need to sneak past. The stealth worked well enough, but being caught and killed resulted in a rather feeble animation for our death. This is a pity as the animation in the cutscenes is actually very good! We are also introduced to Ian’s abilites: astral projection (leaving his body to fly around, giving access to new areas) and a standard time-slowing ability. The astral projection skill has potential to be interesting if utilised well, and comes with some rather nice screen warping effects, which I quite enjoyed.
The second stage was much more action oriented, with Ian needing to find a certain room in a well guarded tower block. This plays like a fairly standard third-person shooter with stealth elements. Ian progresses through a linear series of hallways using stealth takedowns and gunfire to defeat enemy guards (of which I noticed maybe four different character models — I hope there are more in the final release) whilst collecting their weapons to resupply. Ian’s abilities can still be used here to aid him, with the time-slowing ability helping with direct confrontation and astral projection being useful for stealth. Stealth was probably more useful, as Ian can’t take a lot of punishment before succumbing to his wounds, but neither option felt especially thrilling. We conclude with Ian arriving at the designated room followed by another well animated cutscene.
Visually, the cutscenes look fairly good as I’ve already mentioned, and some of the in-game graphics are nice as well. The nightmare level looked quite good throughout, but the one in the tower block didn’t fare nearly as well. The bright lights highlighted some fairly last gen visuals compared to the dark of the prison. The sound is reasonable, but very quiet during the cutscenes for some reason. The controls took a bit of getting used to, with an unusual keyboard layout and no option to change the keys in the demo. I felt as though this was designed with controllers in mind as the primary control method, although with a little sensitivity tinkering and some time I managed to adjust to the control scheme.
As it stands, Past Cure looks interesting. There’s potential for a good story in which nightmare and reality begin to bleed together, as well as an engaging survival horror experience. I hope there is a greater range of abilities in the final product, as I feel that could really add to the competent combat system.
Past Cure releases on February the 23rd on PC, Xbox One and PS4, and I’m interested in seeing where the story goes. I’m always on the lookout for a good survival horror experience (especially one with good puzzles and riddles). I hope they manage to bring their vision to life in a game they can be proud of.
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