Whilst short in length and light on scares, Terminal 81 delivers paranoia in spades.
Slight plot spoiler warning early on, I’m going to say right off the bat that Terminal 81 handles a rather harrowing subject matter in the form of sex trafficking. If this is a sensitive subject for you, then stop now and know that this game is not for you. There won’t be much in the way of spoilers beyond this point, so read on if you are happy to do so.
In Terminal 81 you play as Lorena, a young woman living in Brazil, looking for work during the credit crisis of 2008. She moves to a fictional district of Sao Paulo called Terminal 81, where she moves into a small apartment and works the night shift as a cashier at a local convenience store. Each day Lorena heads to work, chats to the locals, and heads home. Before long though, she finds out that young women have been disappearing from the area. In fact the position she fills at the store is only as a result of her predecessor being one of those disappearances. Will Lorena become another victim, or will she find a way to prevent anyone else from suffering a terrible fate?
This is one of those horror games that features very little explicit horror. For ninety percent of the runtime you’ll be doing menial tasks and speaking to local people who will gradually give you more and more information about these disappearances. There are a couple of jump scares very late in the game, and I’ll happily admit that these really caught me off guard. I, and many others, look down on jump scares as a cheap trick to get a reaction, but in Terminal 81 they really felt earned. I had spent so long doing my supermarket job, becoming more and more paranoid about when the inevitable attack would occur that when it finally hit it almost felt like catharsis rather than a ‘gotcha’ moment. I really appreciated this as the slow burn led to an impressively shocking payoff even though I knew it would eventually happen.
Up until this point, Lorena’s every day task is quite menial. You’ll scan items, take money, and chase off thieves in the store, using a somewhat clunky interface. This is a fine section, and somewhat required to drill home the otherwise mundane aspect of Lorena’s life, but they could do with being a little shorter to allow you to get on with the exploration and information gathering that is all the more entertaining.
Exploring the environment shows off how hard the stock market crash has hit the local area. There are lots of homeless people, graffiti everywhere, people huddling around fires for warmth. Many people will speak to you, telling you of their struggles and how they perceive the local and national politicians. Some will warn you not to go down dark areas due to the disappearances, whilst others will tell you more about those disappearances. You can help locals out by giving them some of your meagre wages, or clean up the local park to cheer up people in it. Shops sell food to fill your stamina so you can stay out longer, and items to allow you access to other optional areas. There are lots of little activities here to keep you busy if you want to see and do everything. Alternatively, you can just head straight home after work. The plot will progress whether you interact with people or not.
What you choose to do or not do will have an impact too. If you gather enough information, the perpetrators will be caught, if not then those disappearances will continue. Some characters will live or die depending on if you spent time talking to and advising them. For such a short and arguably simple looking game, there’s a lot more under the surface than you might expect.
Now, another slight spoiler warning here. You will eventually be kidnapped and need to make your escape. This plays out as something of a stealth puzzle game, with you needing to find items to open the way out. There’s only one person patrolling, and he’s pretty easy to evade, so this section wasn’t much more than a bit irritating as you searched around for what you needed. I hope you bought the torch earlier on too, as it’s a bit of a pain to navigate in the darkness. For what it’s worth, this is the weakest area of the game, but it’s still pretty solid.
The visuals are deliberately old fashioned, and when combined with the speed at which you can get attacked it reminded me of some of Puppet Combo’s horror offerings. Terminal 81 uses its art direction well enough though, giving the titular district a heavily run down look. There’s the issue of some of the text in the environment still being in Portuguese though, meaning I couldn’t read placards held by protestors, or graffiti on the walls. Dialogue and notes are still translated well though. The sound is really well done, and whilst there isn’t voice acting, the way the ambient sound plays with you is excellent. Outside a nightclub has the dull thrum of bass, but go down a dark side street and you’ll have background noise fade, to be replaced with raucous shouting and the sounds of drunken groups. It feels threatening to be in these areas which really adds to the paranoia.
Terminal 81 is a really well done horror game. With multiple endings and heaps of hidden secrets with their own mini side stories, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in a game that’s under £5. Whilst the runtime is only a few hours, going back to it to find more is certainly worthwhile. This isn’t going to scare you to death, but it’ll certainly make you feel uncomfortable.
Terminal 81 is available now on PC, Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch.
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