Each new type of monster you encounter is a body horror mess that requires unique tactics to defeat. Simple glow sticks can seem like a gift from heaven in pitch-black corridors where turning on your flashlight at the wrong time might end a run. Your character hyperventilates during combat, causing sluggish movement if you’re not mindful of your ever-increasing heart rate. They draw sharp breaths as they’re awoken from cryo, and each trip downward into The Complex is a cacophony of sound. The prisoners shake and fidget nervously while you’re choosing their loadouts. GTFO has, bar none, the most consistent and polished atmosphere I’ve ever encountered in a game. After enough time spent in any one GTFO level, you’ll probably start to feel a lot like the prisoners do: crazed, sick, stressed, beaten, and desperate to return to the surface. Image: 10 ChambersĪnd boy, does it feel good to see that Expedition Survived screen. Failing a mission after two hours of sneaking and scraping by feels bad, obviously, but every wipe imparts another thread of knowledge that you’ll eventually weave together into a successful run. Once you know what to expect, though, you can plan accordingly: Maybe on your next run, you’ll bring two deployable turrets instead of one, or head straight to the critical path without feeling the need to explore quite as much. But that singular task might involve typing commands into terminals to locate said item, reading environmental clues to determine the route to that zone, delving down dangerous side paths to scrounge for ammunition, and any number of unexpected complications. Mission objectives are often as simple as locating an item and carting it back to the extraction point. Much of GTFO’s difficulty comes from not knowing what’s going to happen next. But more importantly, you gain knowledge that you didn’t previously possess. Even a failed run can grant you new boosters - boons like increased ammo or health regeneration that you can apply to future attempts. There are no easy paths through The Complex.īut even when you suffer a crushing wipe, you’re never really leaving empty-handed. Like every design choice from developer 10 Chambers, that feels deliberate. Checkpoints are a relatively new addition to the game, but they remain few and far between missions can take hours to complete, and they might have a single checkpoint, or none. Not everyone has spare time to devote hours to a game where a single misfired shot might kill your whole team and send you back to the main menu. Understandably, GTFO is a tough sell for some players. The drop sequence in GTFO, in which four prisoners plummet into the depths of The Complex That, in turn, can bite you from behind later in the level, when you trip an alarm that sends endless waves of mutants your way, testing your aim, your improvisation skills, and your ability to make snap choices under pressure. Whiffing a bonk or simply taking a step at the wrong time might wake up the whole room, which, if your team doesn’t outright wipe, results in wasting precious ammo (at best). Gameplay is a mix of stealth and shooting combat you’ll do your best to clear each new room of Sleepers without waking them up, which generally involves skulking around in the dark while syncing up melee strikes with your teammates. The Complex is infested by a variety of “Sleepers,” horrifically mutated forms that lash out with whip-like tongues from toothy orifices. In GTFO, you play as one of four prisoners who are sent deep underground, against their will, to accomplish esoteric objectives at the behest of an unseen entity known as The Warden. But the game’s brutal challenge serves a purpose: As you explore the labyrinthine laboratories and tunnels that make up the oppressive underground facility known only as The Complex, the crushing awareness that the smallest slip-up might result in you and your team losing hours of progress creates tension and terror unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Many players who try GTFO will call it punishing. But the co-op horror shooter takes things even further: It uses difficulty to inject each moment with terror, and blow past every game in the genre. And then there’s the old-fashioned jump scare - ever reliable - like zombie dogs unexpectedly crashing through a window. There are games that obscure your senses so you can’t see or hear what’s around the next corner, and games that give you no way to fight back at all. Some assault you with grotesque monsters that make your skin crawl at the mere sight of them. Some use resource scarcity, forcing you to agonize over every bullet. There are a lot of different ways for games to scare players.
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