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Huntsman: The Orphanage

Jan 30 2014.

Huntsman: The Orphanage

Huntsman: The Orphanage, is one of the latest in an interesting genre of no-weapon - horror games, similar to Amnesia or Outlast. I reviewed Amnesia in on Tech-a-holic last year, and the feeling of playing another such game, brings the same thrill.

True, at first, without all the weapons, powers or armies that I would normally have when playing FPS or RPG games, this seemed slightly outside my comfort zone.

But so far my experience has been great and I find myself combing the web for more of such games.

True to its creepy sounding name, Huntsman: The Orphanage, aims to be a menacing horror game but you won’t get all the answers to the burning questions right away.

For instance, who is the huntsman? How and why did 12 orphans vanish without a trace from a rural orphanage in 1897? Why?! These questions never seem to leave the back of your head, even when you are done with the game, which is great because that’s what we want horror games to feature.

I bet many of us had the same feeling when playing games like Bioshock, the lingering questions that last even after finishing the game multiple times, is a just amazing. One thing about the game is that while it may not feature ground-blazing graphics, it does feature excellent voice work, which makes up for some of the limitations of the surrounding visuals.

While your character might lack weapons and a killer instinct, he does have access to a smartphone that seems to relay messages from the dead children - maybe there’s an app for that these days? Yet, despite this fact, the greatest pleasure of the game is earned when going through the belongings of the former inhabitants of the orphanage by rummaging through old suitcases and filthy prosthetics for clues that may lead you to the answers you seek. Unsurprisingly, this premise, together with chilling music and the general sense of dread, bring about a genuinely intense horror game.

As you move through the game dusting off clues and seeking out answers, the phone will begin to assume a life of itself, while voices and images of 12 missing children come cracking through, begging and pleading with you to find their favourite belongings and return the items to their graves so that their souls could finally escape the menacing huntsman. However, keep in mind that there are no shortcuts here, and it is actually a little harder than it looks as the objects do not glow or look very different from their surroundings.

Moreover, you can’t try stumbling on them by randomly moving your cursor across the screen. Interaction is only possible when crouching or lying down and in many cases you might find yourself unable to see it despite staring right at it.

However, as the game progresses and you become more familiar with the surroundings, picking out the objects that stand out become easier over time.

The Huntsman himself is somewhat absent from the game. It’s as if he is an absent-minded jailkeeper, wandering around. He is first referred to in the very beginning of the game, when a narrator explains the disappearance and local legends of a mysterious dark force who abducted the children.

You first get to see the creature by the light of your phone amidst the darkness. The character is deformed and menacing and seems more like a weird taxidermy experiment; with his renaissance-style plague mask and weird combination of arachnid legs and steampunk outfit. Each time he gets close, you can hear the sound of a constant ticking. That’s particularly creepy early on in the game. The villain, however, is not as threatening as the plot and outfit suggest because of his relative detachment.

Even when you do get caught, the Huntsman sucks you into some sort of limbo but the fade out effect is just that with no sense of real closure. Compare that to the superb fade-out cuts of the Batman Arkham series, where every defeat has a twist of its own.

Eventually, as you start putting the children’s belongings back into their graves, the experience of the game changes for the better. The only problem is that the graves remain scattered in a vast overgrown hedge maze. The sickly games the Huntsman would have played with these children can drive your mind numb. His constant presence is also a reminder that a wrong move could lead you to a similar misfortunate fate. However, as the game goes on, the maze becomes more familiar and it becomes easier to get going and let the dead finally rest in peace.

By Navam Niles