I Hate This Place is a title that’s based on a comic, I mean, not a direct sequel to the popular comic, but it draws heavy inspiration from it, the setting, style, and the era when this game takes place. And I gotta mention, I’ve never read comics. I know most folks will say, “Wow, how come?” but there you go. Maybe ’cause they forced me to read them when I was a kid and I developed some kinda aversion to them, but either way, I could never enjoy it. That’s exactly why it was such a weird situation when I tried the game at Gamescom, and straight-up said I don’t read comics, but I totally loved what I saw. Though honestly, that was also the reason I grabbed a bit of info on the comic, not to read it, God forbid.
As I said, the I Hate This Place comic was done by Artyom Toplin and Kyle Starks. A brutal horror set in the 80s with all sorts of paranormal phenomena, monsters, aliens, and that kinda stuff. The comic itself follows the story of two besties, Trudy and Gabby, who inherit a house where all sorts of shit goes down. It was a pretty original comic that just blew people away with the style it’s drawn in and of course everything that happens in it. Just the perfect setup for a game.
I Hate This Place, although not a direct sequel, still pulls inspiration from all sides—it’s just made after the comic. In the game, you take on the role of Elena, who heads back to her hometown with her best friend Lou (there’s the first similarity) to confront her demons and the so-called The Horned Man, a presence that’s haunted her since she was little and won’t give her any peace. Right from the start, Lou and Elena decide to do a little ritual, just messing around with the paranormal, when something awful happens. Lou disappears and Elena’s dead set on finding her. But during that ritual, something bad gets awakened—an ancient evil that’s now stalking this valley where the game takes place. Elena’s faced with everything she thought only appeared in her dreams: all the horrors, monsters, ghosts, and paranormal shit that just shouldn’t exist in reality.
It’s interesting how the game sets up some pretty solid foundations for the mystery and everything it’s gonna throw at you right from the beginning. Someone’s gone missing, you’re just armed with a baseball bat, a flashlight, and a couple snacks in your pocket as you head out on this adventure to figure out what happened. Why this place you’re in is full of such weird people, beings, horrors—and whether any of them are to blame for your best friend vanishing. From the initial running around, you realize this isn’t a game that’s gonna hold your hand; it’s gonna let you explore, okay, not right away at the start, but pretty damn soon. And let me point out one important thing.
I Hate This Place is an isometric survival horror open-world action adventure. So you’ve got a bit of everything at every moment. It’s not a game where you can just run around shooting everything, ’cause there’s that survival element that’s a huge part of this title. It’s key to gather resources, craft stuff, and just adapt to this world. At the beginning, you’re not given much, just the start of the mystery you gotta solve—but once you get through the intro, learn the mechanics and rules of this world you’re in, a whole lot more opens up than you thought the game could offer. Okay, at least that’s how it was for me. I thought it was a pretty linear adventure ,maybe spread across levels, but I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it’s actually a small but brilliantly designed open world where you can do absolutely whatever you want in whatever order you feel like.
The whole map you play on is divided into several areas: forest, ranch, which is also your base of operations, swamps, meadows, and so on. Each part of the map is pretty different from the others—not just in looks, but in the things that can hurt you in the game. Also, every area has its own mysteries you can solve. Ghosts you can help and uncover what really happened to them so they get their eternal peace, kids throwing a party who need booze and goats for sacrifice, cultists who were wrongly accused of murders, and it’s up to you to clear their name, a priest who’s actually a former marine and pretty much enjoys mowing down abominations. There’s absolutely everything in this world, and every story you stumble upon, every mystery, every secret—it’s all really brilliantly conceived and written. The best part is that every dialogue is fully voice-acted, so it pulls you even deeper into this horror mystery world.
The map isn’t huge, but it’s excellently divided, so every section has enough stuff to explore and find. You won’t be able to roam every part right away, some’ll need special tools to venture into, some areas unlock with the story, but it’s on you to discover how and what you need to do to see it all. And something’s happening around every corner. No matter how empty and mysterious it all looks at first glance, something always pops up that’ll blow you away and suck you into a new mystery, everything’s so perfectly measured and done. There’s a dynamic day-night cycle in the game, which really affects your exploration. At night, enemies are more aggressive and stronger, ’cause we’re talking abominations born from the dark. During the day, everything’s easier, so it’d be cool to check the time at the ranch before heading out on your adventure and plan what you’ll do while the sun’s high in the sky.
As for the mechanics, the game has absolutely everything, ’cause it’s a bit of all genres. Elena has to survive, and though she starts with just her baseball bat, over time she’ll find other tools to help her out. Pistol, SMG, various bombs, and so on. That said, clashing with the paranormal isn’t always the best way to get through and solve certain sections. I Hate This Place leans heavily on stealth mechanics, which I really liked. In some parts, it’s recommended, ’cause since it’s a survival game, you don’t have unlimited ammo, health items, snacks, and whatever else to survive every fight. Yeah, you’ve got the baseball bat, but every time an enemy gets close while you’re trying to bash its head in, it’s gonna take a chunk of your health for sure.
As for the shooting, the game switches into Twin Stick Shooter mode there. As I said already, shooting isn’t always the best choice, but it’s brilliantly done. Especially when you blast abominations with dynamite or a shotgun. Though Elena isn’t the most skilled with weapons, and it takes her a while to reload them, that whole sense of tension when you run out of ammo in the clip is really well conveyed to the player. That’s why positioning in those moments is super important—you can’t just run around shooting. There’s a stamina bar, and of course the environment often slows you down, trees blocking your escape from fights so you can reload that shotgun.
If you die, you gotta go back to the last save spot or autosave checkpoint, which honestly are pretty rare. Happened to me a couple times that I lost 30-45 minutes of progress ’cause I wasn’t careful. And saving is done in specific rooms, where you’ve usually got a workbench, a bed to rest, and a TV to save your progress.
Since I mentioned the Workbench and Ranch already, lemme write a bit about it: the Ranch is owned by your family, where you can rest, chat with your uncle about the mysteries you’ve encountered or have him clear some stuff up for you, ’cause you’re not really up to speed on everything going on here. On top of that, there’s a building system. Elena needs food, raw materials, ammo, and everything else to survive in this world. Building various structures on the ranch makes that easier. The Ranch’ll actually be your primary base. The place you’ll head to between quests and adventures, rest, craft a few things you’re missing, and so on. The whole system is super well done—the only tiny issue is you can exploit it a bit too much.
If you decide to dive more into exploration, ranch building, gathering resources and all that, you can basically stockpile supplies so you don’t worry as much about consequences during your adventures. This is good ’cause on one hand it makes the game easier, but on the other, it might make it too easy in some moments. When you’ve made 20 medkits, over 100 bullets, 10 bombs and head out to do quests like that, the game feels pretty easy. ‘Cause basically you don’t have a time limit to find your friend and uncover the mysteries of this place. You can do it whenever you want.
Besides that, the other downside is that, well, the game is short! I mean, not that short, you’ll need about 10-12 hours to beat the story, a bit more if you wanna do all the quests, even more if you go hard on exploration. Of course, if you’re in no rush anywhere, you’ll have plenty of time to just mess around as long as you want. Though the way the story’s told and everything that happens in the game is so infectiously done that you just want more mysteries, more crazy stuff, more ghost stories, and so on. You’ll never get enough ’cause everything in this game is resolved in such a brilliant, super fun, and satisfying way. Though, every game has an end, unfortunately, including this one.
Just to mention the technical stuff, I think it’s due. The game looks great and runs perfectly even on the ROG Ally PC Handheld. Dynamic shadows and the day-night cycle really add to the whole experience, and everything looks awesome. Night is dark, so you always need your flashlight handy to know where you’re stepping, and day is lighter, brighter, and more pleasant for exploring. That whole 80s aesthetic is spot-on, as they’d say. From the retro vibe of everything you find, to the animations, the style of clothes on the characters you meet, and, of course, their habits and way of communicating. Feels like the dev team thought of every little detail, even though it’s an isometric view, not first-person. That didn’t stop them at all from capturing that 80s spirit properly, the game oozes that vibe from every pore.
We would like to thank Broken Mirror Games for providing us with a copy of the game for review purposes.
I Hate This Place (PC)
I Hate This Place is one fantastic title, a complete survival horror action adventure that has something for everyone in it. I'm glad dev teams can use an unconventional execution for some genres and realize their ideas this effectively. I get that there are tons of games like this, but few combine all the elements into such a brilliant, beautiful, and exciting package like I Hate This Place. So, if you haven't already, check out the game, add it to your Wishlist, and just enjoy it.
