Hands on: Noct Could be One of the Best Survival Horror Games of the Last Decade
Noct is one of those games that does so much with so little. It proves that you don’t need a fully realised world with resplendent visuals to scare the bejesus out of you. Instead, you play through a grainy, top-down view that has you squinting and squirming as every vague detail in your peripheral has you thinking the worst.
The decision to have your viewpoint from a satellite’s thermal camera was genius; it makes sure you have no real grasp of what you see, and nowhere is safe. As you walk across the baron city, its darkness is just as much of an enemy as the giant bug-like creatures are. Don’t be naïve to think you’re safe, because you probably aren’t.
Even though the slugs on steroids can be really hard to kill, you never know how many are really out there and it only adds to the fear. There were times in the beta when I managed to cover quite a bit of ground without dying, or encountering any of the slimy xenomorphs; it is refreshing to not have a constant onslaught to fend off, and the real terror came in never really knowing what was around the next corner.
Its sound design is second–to-none, with the majority of the praise going to Nine Inch Nails’ Robin Finck for providing such a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. His work with Wordclock here is some of the best I’ve heard in a video game. The atmosphere is built by minimalist melodies and thunderous rasps, making the music just as terrifying as the actual gameplay.
The claustrophobic nature of this post-apocalyptic world swallows you whole and barely allows you a moment to think or breathe, and your survival is down to how smart you play it. Noct makes you feel vulnerable no matter how many supplies you have. Granted, your inventory isn’t going to resemble Rambo’s, but the general consensus with guns is that the better the weapon and the more ammo you have, the higher the likelihood of surviving. You’ll find guns scattered around, but ammo tends to be a little less available, meaning you do need to be cautious when firing off rounds.
You also need to think about whether or not it’s worth attacking the bugs. Sometimes it is better to conserve your supplies and find a quieter way through. You’ll occasionally receive help from a mysterious character watching you from the satellite above who’ll let you know where you can find the odd round or AK-47.
One of my favourite things about the beta was what happens after you die. When you respawn, your guardian angel tells you that there is ammo nearby and you’ll find it on a dead body; that dead body is you from your previous attempt at surviving. “That’s fucked up!” you respond, completely echoing your own thoughts on the task at hand. It is an eerie, yet humorous moment and you feel like that guy who laughed at a funeral.
With this being an Early Access build of the game, issues are present, and trying to connect to the multiplayer was near impossible. The prospect of teaming up with other survivors to take out the monsters in these bleak environments is a great one, but after a significant number of attempts I only connected to a single game.
Noct could be something really special when the game sees an official release in 2016. It’s tense, terrifying and lots of fun, and I can’t wait to play through the entirety of its campaign. Devolver have once again struck gold, and developer Chris Eskins has built a game that could end up being one of the better survival horror titles of the last decade.
