Iblis

Where do we even begin with Iblis? There seems to be a lot of detail in telling the player that the game will be very uncomfortable. Anyone uninclined to a few scares or psychological horror should turn back immediately. You can't quite tell if this is just meant to terrify you or if it's legit.

As the theme would suggest, Iblis is a dark take that serves more as a walking simulator than survival horror. Initial impressions probably ask more questions than they answer, which ultimately leaves the query of where this game is going. Honestly, we've no clue, so we better dive into the story to find out.

Down with the Devil

It's probably worth mentioning that Iblis is the name of the 'King of the Devils' in Islamic lore. That sets the tone and theme of the game, where a demon has found itself in a relationship with an innocent woman. The story concept is where the fun starts to fall from the beginning, as the storyline doesn't seem to make sense.

But the aim here seems to be to terrify the player as much as possible with psychological horror scenarios. The objectives are to figure out what's happening with this cursed home. Specific events in the middle will scare you out of the dark visuals and attempt to mess with your head.

We can't reveal what happens because the mystery is the game's core premise. But we can answer whether Iblis is good or not - and the answer is, sadly, no, it is not. Unfortunately, the storyline is messy, making it hard to provide that mind-mess effect and get people scared.

There's not enough to keep you engaged, even for a walking simulator. The visuals aren't well balanced to provide the horror atmosphere, the sound effects are annoying, and you'll finish the game having no idea what happened if anything. Maybe something is lost in translation here, but it's hard to understand how most people would take anything away from Iblis.

Questioning Beliefs

There are plenty of pretty decent horror games, albeit limited in what they offer. Iblis is not one of them. Players will be able to tell almost immediately that it's going to be a struggle to understand what's going on. When you don't understand the story - how can you get scared? Especially when there's some attempted psychological horror at stake here.

Round-Up - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Well-crafted visuals of a Middle Eastern village home
• The dark atmosphere does provide a scary undertone

Cons:

• The narrative is non-sensical
• The gameplay doesn't deliver on psychological horror promises
• Not enough scares to justify genre placement.