The Haunted Hoard: In Nightmare (PS5)
Many horror games will feature both a good and bad ending to their story, it fairly appropriate for a tale meant to terrify to also have a possible negative outcome. In Nightmare though takes things a step further, the main story not only having a Bad, Normal, and Good ending, but each of its six chapters essentially has a good and bad ending. In the right format, such an idea could be captivating, a way to encourage the player to constantly chase shorter term goals rather than just hitting the required marks to guide the grander plot, but in this isometric stealth game, engaging with this intriguing narrative choice is obstructed by the poor planning done elsewhere.
In Nightmare, also known as NightmareScape for its Switch release, sees you playing as Bill after he has become trapped in a coma dream that has taken a dark and surreal turn. Appearing as the 12 year old version of himself, Bill must come face to face with twisted spaces that represent his path through life, encountering echoes of the trauma he experienced and literal monsters that have now been birthed by his fears and insecurities regarding the people he knew. Each chapter will see you examining a period in his life like his early life before his parents’ divorce or his school days where he was excessively bullied, but as you learn more about what happened about Bill, you’ll also likely come to realize all you know about Bill is the cavalcade of depressing situations he moves through. Rarely do we get a feeling for his voice or behavior, a lot of what you learn just being things that happen to him to layer on more and more suffering. It seems like everyone in Bill’s life has a reason to hate him and it’s often rather arbitrary, and even though we do get moments that assure us people do care about him, these are often private thoughts that don’t line up well with actions or are just priming us for another tragedy. On some level, any reasonable human being would of course to object to a kid experiencing such a traumatic life, but with no greater roots to add substance to the character whose life we’re learning about, it ends up just feeling like we’re watching someone craft a punching bag for the universe to throw pointless cruelty at.
Bill’s life can at least lead to some interesting subliminal spaces, the mansion of his father, an alcoholic artist, corrupted and warped by his father’s pursuits while the school he went to can become an ominous and misty place haunted by giant ever-watchful monsters that represent the bullies always looking to pick on him. The area design can be impressive and compelling when you just stop to appreciate its visual representation of Bill’s life, and some imagery at least holds your attention with the skill put into it and the curious choice for its appearance even if the narrative doesn’t make the best use of it. However, as you travel around these dreamscapes, you’ll want to be on the lookout for notes and meaningful items to pick-up, the game oddly only sometimes having you read these whereas others must be opened from a clunky collection screen in the pause menu. These notes are not just there to actually tell the tale that isn’t otherwise shared much, but there are key collectibles that tie to the game’s chapters having alternate endings. Certain finds are crucial to unlocking full on extra segments of chapters at times, additional areas and puzzles as well as the game’s true final boss all requiring you to find the right notes and objects along the way. Not all of them are along the obvious path forward, incentivizing you to better consider the areas you find yourself in at all times, but this angle does run into one big issue. Retrying a chapter of In Nightmare requires redoing the entire chapter, something that can be an unfortunately lengthy task for possibly just one or two collectibles. Things get even worse though when you consider how the gameplay is even handled, since In Nightmare is a stealth game, a genre known for often having to take your time and with heavy punishments for slip-ups.
In Nightmare does fall into the stealth genre mold some in that regard, but in other ways it breaks from it, sometimes not even intentionally. Across the many chapters you’ll run into many different monsters such as a large lady who chases after you, the many-eyed bullies of the school who walk on set patrols, and tree creatures that either spring to life when you trigger something nearby or are invisible and will strike if you get too close to the visual distortion they cause. Any monster that grabs you will instantly kill you and send you back to a normally fairly close by checkpoint, and one thing In Nightmare should be commended for is its attempts to reinvent how stealth is handled each chapter even if it’s not always the best. The woman for example will eventually get fast little scouts that help her teleport to where you are if they spot you, the tree creatures are aided by eye-shaped spotlights that slow you down considerably if they notice you, and sometimes visual cones will sweep an area and zap you instantly should you end up in the view of the unseen menace. It toys with the idea of sneaking around and even gives you an interesting tool in the form of Bikti, Bill’s bug-like imaginary friend able to fly ahead without disturbing monsters so you can scout around corners or get a broader view of the area. Bikti sounds like a particularly great inclusion in a stealth game, the player often needing to find a safe place to take cover in as they send Bikti out for scouting while there are still some limits on how far it can fly. It doesn’t quite overcome one issue with the game’s art direction though in that the diagonal-down view of everything can sometimes lead to important information being hard to see thanks to walls or objects obscuring your vision. You do eventually get Dream Orbs though, the player only able to hold a few but they can be used to stun a monster with a flash if they do get caught by surprise or just need to make some way around a monster obstructing the path ahead. Most of the game’s stealth mechanics all end up mattering even less though when you realize one thing: Bill runs faster than every monster.
Be it a boss or a regular creature stalking about the halls, if it chases Bill with deadly intent, he can outrun it. You do have running stamina, although expanding it is fairly easy and happens along the intended path often, but it’s also fairly easy to manage the stamina by just doing brief walks between the sprints. Save where the path ahead is too tight for a mad dash past a monster, you can usually just outrun whatever is following you until you lose it around a corner or reach the next area. The visual distortions when a monster is nearby make it easy to know when you’re in danger or being chased and even if you do get caught getting sloppy during a sprint, reappearing nearby means you can often can just attempt another rush to where you want to be. There are definitely situations where you have to go slow and steady thanks to a specific gimmick or the area’s layout, but other times you can lead a threat around a table round and round if you like to buy time. In some ways it is nice you can do this, if you wanted to replay chapters to get things you missed you can at least trivialize the danger to you at some points, but it also trivializes the danger during regular play and is easy to figure out naturally before you are too deep into the adventure. Most of the game’s tools to make you feel nervous evaporate once you realize how easy they are to get around or how little punishment there is for failure much of the time, and when it does force you to take your time, it often ends up slow and bland instead as you’re just waiting out patterns where there’s not much to do besides the exact prescribed push forward.
Puzzles in In Nightmare are a bit better considered than the stealth. The game can be quite good at laying out clues in an area that don’t give the puzzle away immediately but you can recognize as important for interpretation. A trap filled hall of colored rooms at the carnival for example seems incredibly complicated, but once you interpret its clue, you feel smart for getting around it. Some simpler ones are peppered around to break up the stealth as well that are more straightforward, but a good deal of the puzzles stand out for having some thought put into their composition. On the other hand, the game itself sometimes faces unfortunate issues like a point where an area exit would not work for me until I loaded an earlier checkpoint and redid a slow moving platform section or how the game’s false final boss can have you get stuck inside the model of one of the machines in the arena. The PlayStation Network trophies didn’t trigger for me either, and there were times monsters got stuck on the environment so they didn’t even chase properly. Worst of all though, the boss of chapter 4, a woman who retreats into the ground whenever you damage her, just didn’t reappear for me at one point, requiring a reset of a lengthy fight. Issues like these can only make retrying chapters more agonizing if you care for the true ending, an underwhelming ending awaiting you even if the true final boss adds a bit more to the game should you face them.
THE VERDICT: In Nightmare is a poor host for a lot of good ideas. Scouting with Bikti, having chapters with specific special endings if you do the right things, and some of the puzzle designs would work in a better structured game, but In Nightmare’s stealth is sloppy and easily bypassed when it’s not outright annoying while the chapters aren’t built well for replaying even before you consider actual glitches that can get in the way of play. In Nightmare ends up a bit of a nightmare to play because it can’t muster up much worth seeing besides its occasionally clever puzzles, the story in particular a drag since it’s almost all darkness and suffering with no lasting light to make you care about the journey you’re on.
And so, I give In Nightmare for PlayStation 5…
A TERRIBLE rating. The glitches on top of the sprint being more useful than it should be really add a sour taste to this stealth horror adventure. It’s hard to take the threats seriously when you know your twelve year old avatar can easily run circles around them, and even if you do get caught, it doesn’t bug you for long since you just run in and try again. Then again, when you’re truly sneaking it can be slow and tedious, so it’s not even landing well when it tries to restrict you a bit more. There are some environments to appreciate even if you’ll probably tune out the plot their visual metaphors tie to once you realize nothing will ever improve for Bill, and there are some solid puzzles in the mix that are a nice relief from the other sorts of action. In fact, if the game was to lean purely into puzzles it might have provided a better time, and it’s no coincidence that the moments where monsters hold some palpable threat is when a puzzle is mixed with active dangers. Just needing to get a little alone time to flip a switch isn’t hard and the game leans on that angle too much to try and make its monster escapes work, but at least Bikti sees some use outside of the failed purpose of monster scouting when it comes to looking for secrets or making sure the environment didn’t block sight of something important ahead.
The reason I lead with the game’s ultimately flawed concept of having each chapter have essentially alternate endings is because it does feel like it was a promising angle, something true of many other ideas in this adventure. If you could extend a section and uncover extra lore by doing the right actions in a small section of the game, it could make you more attentive and provide more rewards than delaying it all to the end like other horror games often do where you might get a different five minute cutscene as your prize for playing a specific way. A cleaner experience with easier backtracking or just play more conducive to repeating sections would maybe help this idea truly come to life in a compelling way, but instead, In Nightmare is just going to be the place these dreams are trapped in, the creativity on show in parts here not likely to escape to a better game.