Dread Neighbor Review – Horror Around The Corner

Moving into an apartment near a cemetery seems like a bad idea, but the rent is cheap. However, it seems that a strange man is stalking you when various accidents occur in your new home. Is it the work of a dangerous individual or something supernatural? Dread Neighbor, developed by Ghostcase and published by Erabit, blurs the lines between the two. Your adventure makes you wonder if you are seeing the situation for what it is or if it’s something worse.

The story takes place across various settings and involves different characters. Connecting all these people together is a masked individual who can somehow stalk our characters with chilling ease. At first, you don’t know why people are being stalked or what the goal is. But as the story progresses, you wonder if there’s any way to stop the stalking before things get worse. If they don’t, horrible things happen and you can’t stop them.

What I appreciated about the story was how ordinary the cast was. There are no spectral experts, ghostbusters, or anyone with martial arts training. Most of the cast are just ordinary people who moved into an apartment building because it was cheap. On the other hand, the stalker has an uncanny ability to constantly track the people in the story. It’s not always clear whether it’s deliberate planning or a supernatural power.

Being ordinary heightens the stakes because you know these people will struggle against the horrors they see, turning up the fear factor and making the experience more thrilling. I hesitated to look around a corner or turn around sometimes because I would constantly wonder if something was there. You don’t know when something scary is going to happen, but when it does, it hits you harder than you expect.

However, my main struggle with the story is that the objectives aren’t always clear. Sometimes you have a small circle indicating something you must investigate, but it’s not always obvious what you should check. I would tour an office building and not know where the mains (switches) are because there’s no clear direction. While it wasn’t enough to stop me from proceeding, it replaced the horror with frustration.

It’s also unfortunate that the story’s short length prevents you from relating to the characters. On one hand, the narrative hones in on the horror of everyday activities suddenly becoming more dangerous. However, not having enough time to develop any attachment to the characters makes it easy to forget about them as the story progresses. By the time the final act started, I was mostly cheering for the protagonist because the alternative was a bad ending.

Gameplay involves moving from one area to another, inspecting various objects to proceed with the story. You often don’t travel much, but some sections involve some puzzle-solving. But most of the time you are inspecting objects or grabbing items to use for something else. Only towards the end of the game do you get more action.

The environments are dark and dreary, with several power outages forcing you to search in relative darkness. There is lighting, but often you’re forced to navigate while barely seeing a few steps ahead. It heightens the threat level and makes you wonder when something is going to jump out at you; the stalker isn’t the only frightful thing you’ll encounter and the game does a great job providing other scares.

Dread Neighbor does a fantastic job setting up the horror atmosphere with various jump scares to heighten the fear. Mixing the horror through everyday activities prevents you from anticipating where the frightening moments come from. However, navigation isn’t always clear and finding your objectives can be difficult even if it is a short game. But despite its time, Dread Neighbor is a good horror experience if you can push through.

Victor reviewed Dread Neighbor on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.