Static Dread: The Lighthouseis a horror survival game seeped in a unique premise and setting.Papers, Pleasemeets Lovecraft as players are tasked with the arduous duties of running a decrepit, haunted lighthouse at the water’s edge as an apocalypse rises from the sea. The game managed to hook me in its very first chapter, and I would be shocked if this game doesn’t quickly take off in the horror gaming sphere. Interested players should get in on it now before the game’s inevitable popularity spike and YouTube exposure, so that you may brag that you were exposed to the Static Dread itself before your friends.
InStatic Dread: The Lighthouse, you play as a newly appointed lighthouse keeper in a small town just outside of a few major ports. Though this particular lighthouse has been out of commission for a long time, recent events have necessitated its recommission; a strange aurora has appeared over the world, disabling electronic navigation and making your position a highly needed and high-paying one. It doesn’t take you long to realize that stranger things beyond the aurora are going on, and that darkness hides in the very lighthouse you were assigned to, seeking to snuff out the light forever.
Mechanically speaking,Static Dread: The Lighthouseplays a lot likePapers, Please, a stated inspiration for the game, and other horror management games. You’re tasked with guiding ships to the shore, which requires you to monitor a radio and navigate through random channels in order to find the correct call from a ship. After getting in contact with them, you must then draw and fax them a safe route into the correct port, determined by their destination or your work order for the night. Your duties get increasingly more complicated each night as the unfolding apocalypse requires more stringent navigation rules and identification checks.
As you work to guide ships into the harbor, there are numerous problems unfolding around you that also demand your attention. The lighthouse itself may shut off, along with the radio antenna or the very lights in your room. Sitting in darkness evokes creatures of the dark itself, which, should they approach you, threaten your very life. Your sanity and energy must be balanced using your limited access to food and trinkets, making your paycheck every two days very valuable and driving you to avoid as many mistakes as possible during your shift, which are reflected as fines.
Throughout your nightmarish shifts, you will be visited by strangers, both in physical form and through odd radio calls. The locals in the town the lighthouse resides in will occasionally visit to check in on you, trade goods, and may even get you involved in their problems, often relying on your decision for an outcome. The dark voice that visits you on the radio, however, seems to both want to kill you and corrupt you, threatening to consume you in the darkness and yet also trying to turn you to its side, to send vessels into its maw under the guise of protecting the people of the town. You begin to realize that your role as lighthouse keeper is more than just a well-paying, albeit creepy gig. An immense power resides in your hands, and the very fate of the world may be determined by your actions.
Prose aside, you absolutely do dictate the course of events through your actions, as a great number of decisions you make throughout the game’s chapters determine how the story progresses and what kind of ending you get. I won’t spoil my ending, but I will say that the game convinced me to play through it again, determined to see what would have happened if the decisions I made were just a little different… if I sent some key ships to the grave instead of allowing them to reach port.
One of the best thingsStatic Dread: The Lighthousehas going for it is its art style, both the 2D and 3D, which contribute a great deal to both the Lovecraftian feel of the game and the horror. The designs of the characters are jarringly stylized, but in a way that you quickly learn to appreciate, and which feels oddly natural at home in the 3D space, which is also designed in such a way that feels reality-adjacent but still not quite real, something I would tentatively callCourage the Cowardly Dog-like.
Twisted doorways, strange symbols, and creatures of the dark and deep make the world of this game incredibly enthralling. The level of immersion is downright hypnotizing, drawing you into every moment and decision you make in the game.
There isn’t a single thing I would have changed aboutStatic Dread: The Lighthouse. It isn’t your typical horror game, fitting more into a resource management-style horror likeFive Nights at Freddy’s, but that, in my opinion, only makes it work all the more. I would be lying if I saidStatic Dread: The Lighthousewas anything other than one of my favorite titles this year, and I can’t wait to see this game explode in the popularity that it deserves.
The Final Word
Static Dread: The Lighthouseis an excellent resource-management horror game that excels with its fantastic storytelling, incredible art, and hypnotically immersive setting. I have no doubt that this excellent piece of horror storytelling will soon explode in popularity, rightfully winning over fans with the sea-dredged gold it has to offer.
Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review ofStatic Dread: The Lighthouse. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on ourGame Reviewspage!Static Dread: The Lighthouseis available onSteam.
