ECHOSTASIS’s curious and thoughtful horror doesn’t overlook the importance of an excellent shotgun | Gaming

ECHOSTASIS is the third entry in Enigma’s Studio’s horror trilogy, and it’s one of the more interesting games I’ve played this year. There’s a demo on Steam, and you should grab it if you’re interested, since everything I have to say about it is going to be a spoiler of some kind. I’ll attempt a brief description below, but a lot of the fun here is discovering how all its parts fit together, and how even its more prosaic game conventions are defamiliarised through a spooky, static-drenched ensorcellment.

You’re thrown into the game’s opening after you’ve entered your name in a purgatorial terminal, and it immediately feels a little like Bloodborne’s Yharnam might if Sony trolled the world by releasing it not for modern PCs, but…