Do you hear the phone ringing does it mean its a SILENT CALL?

 There is nothing more unnerving than receiving a phone call with a distant and muffled voice on the other end! Exanimum: Silent Call is a atmospheric horror walking sim that delves deep with story rich lore and visuals drenched in blood and gore. ESC was developed by Perspektik , released on March 11 2024 and currently retails for $6.99. This game has a run time of about 2hours (give or take - due to time played I will be using my 5star rating system)

Capturing ambiance and atmosphere are critical to immersion in any game situation. ESC has done that very well especially in respect to the sounds found outside & inside the home. The sounds that I found were the best were inside the hospital, the eerie sense of quiet while also hearing distant sounds, leaving us unsure of their origin. The visual on the other hand are consistent with modern atmospheric hotpot Games, life like, realistic and down right bloody. There was a heavy amount of detail in all of the interior scenes, however I felt we could have used more detail when we were in the dark forest. This could have been a great area to toy with the players peripheral vision or add small glimpses of the creature among other things. My small gripe aside it was beautiful, it was detailed and well done. 

We play as an unnamed protagonist that wakes in a hospital setting with our visions skewed by a sack or mask over our head. We wander around finding small bits of lore about a character names Jason Mercer, however we are unsure if this is ment to be our character or if this is another character tied to the story. After an anxiety educing intro sequence with a few well placed jump scares we wake as our MC in our modern home where we live with our daughter, Sarah. We have to take our daughter to her mothers birthday party. When we are roaming around the house leaning the controls and gathering small bits of the story. After waking our daughter we get our first glimpse of one of our antagonists - looking out the window we see a tall, thing blackened creature with glowing red eyes.

We start our journey on the road only taking a short cut and  are blocked by a tree. As we normally do in typical fatherly fashion we get out and explore what happened after a few creepy moments of exploring and gathering our whit's in the great outdoors, our daughter screams and she is gone from the car! Thus starts our quest to find her and find out what is going on. We start to wander the woods and peel back the layers of the story to find that (how i understood it) we found the house of a man who's daughter and wife tragically died and in his journal entries we discover the depth of his grief he wanted nothing more than to bring him back - 2 souls he wished would return to our world. Through navigating the grisly remains of his home we discover he had found a book titled "The Silent Call" where intense feelings of grief call to an 'angel' called Zaraohkul, who gave guidance and instruction on how to have a chance to bring back those lost. "Every return demands a price. The returned loves ones may be changed spiritually and physically" the short book stresses about a sacrifice - My theory is the man who lost his family was Jason and we are witnessing Jason capturing Sarah and the MC to sacrifice to bring back is own wife and daughter. The story itself was pretty solid however there I do wish there was more voice acting in it as there was A LOT to read between the notes, journal entries and thoughts of the MC. 

The game play is relatively simple with WASD and moving the mouse controls your camera. You can inspect items using the left mouse you can read and inspect items. I always appreciate a simplified control scheme. There is no sense in complicating it. The game was smooth running and I had no bugs, loading was smooth and scenes transitions were quick. The puzzles were well thought out and some were quite tricky, I felt there could have been an opportunity in the opening sequence to put a puzzle of some sort. It truly left me wanting more, so I guess I can only hope for a DLC or Patch to come along and add more because I felt left on a cliff hanger....

The character design for who and what we see what great, the monsters ominous, although the monsters lacked the high detail of its surroundings, i do feel that was thr point. This is a non corporial creature that is slaking us. there was a scene with what I can only call a torso with a leg that was so detailed, I slightly wretched looking at the detail of the decapitated head and arm. I would have loved to see what our MC looked like as well as his daughter. I feel putting a face, Name and voice to a character makes the player care more about them and their plight. 

SOUND DESIGN & VISUALS:⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 /5

GAMEPLAY: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5

CONTROLS:⭐⭐⭐⭐4/5

STORY:⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 

CHARACTER DESIGN:⭐⭐⭐ 3 /5

Overall Score: 3.8 / 5

FINAL THOUGHTS: 

My time with ESC was great for what it was - a short atmospheric walking sim - it was well done. It gave me spooks, was beautifully rendered, leaving me wanting more of it and the story in the end. I do reccomend a playthrough of this game if you want something slow paced, exceptionally detailed then this game is for you. But if you're looking for something that is ultra gore action packed and fast faced then this is NOT what you would want. I recommend playing through this game and seeing if you can piece together the story of Exanimum: Silent Call for yourself. 

👉Pick up Exanimum: The Silent Call here👈