Hunt Down Your Friends In This Terrifying Multiplayer Horror
Published
| Last updated
Featured Image Credit: Ravenhood Games
In Silence is an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game where you play as a terrifying monster, and your friends are the survivors attempting to escape in one piece.
While in lockdown, the games we've been playing have become progressively... unpleasant. In March, Animal Crossing: New Horizons introduced us to our own sleepy haven on an island populated by amicable four-legged friends. Then, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout released in the summer, as a Takeshi's Castle-inspired battle royale garbed in a pastel palette and rocking ridiculous physics. Among Us taught us to keep our friends close and our enemies closer while an imposter picked us off one by one, and the chaos of Phasmophobia deftly explicates why ghost-hunting should never be a social activity.
Now, In Silence is the new kid on the block, and as another Early Access game, it's serving up some serious scares. The premise is: up to five players are stranded in a forest, and one player is the Rake, a hideous, rat-like cryptid with more teeth than is sensible. The group must scavenge enough car parts to fix the car and escape, or find the scattered codes to the armory and take on the Rake. The monster is incredibly fast and incredibly strong, but it is almost blind. It relies on its hypersensitive hearing to work out where its prey is and hunt them down.
The snap of a twig might be all that the Rake player needs to close in on the survivors and win the game. However, the other players aren't sitting ducks. A particularly savvy player might be able to create noise to distract the Rake, or lead it into a bear trap. And, each member of the group has a special flashlight with a flashbang effect which will stun the creature... but it also risks blinding the other players with the same light. And, interestingly, if they do get got by the Rake, the dead players aren't relegated to a spectator role.
They'll return to life as a rat, and they'll be able to find items for the survivors, or draw the Rake away from the group with other noises. Neato. In Silence also has a single-player mode, where the monster is controlled by AI, and also offers this option for multiplayer so all players are outsmarting the Rake... or doing their best to. It is a mega-powerful and mutated rat-like cryptid that has razor-sharp talons and a gaping, bloody maw that is all teeth, after all.
It's like the movie A Quiet Place, mixed with the dread of Phasmophobia, and with a dash of the subterfuge required for Among Us. It's also getting rave reviews on Steam, and patches roll out with regularity, which is impressive for a two-person team. Ravenhood Games says that In Silence will stay in Early Access for two to three months as feedback is gained and the game improves. The full version aims to deliver "more balanced gameplay" and new servers to support players. So, if you and your pals aren't sure how you'll spend Halloween while in lockdown, In Silence could be just the ghastly.
Topics: Indie Games
