I Hate This Place (PS5) Review
Summary: I Hate This Place is a strong survival horror experience with smart mechanics, great monster design, and a compelling soundscape. Its flaws—pacing issues, stiff movement, and occasionally forced dialogue—hold it back from greatness, but they don’t derail the experience. For fans of survival horror who enjoy tension, stealth, and atmosphere, this is absolutely worth your time.
3.75
Worthy
I Hate This Place, published by Skybound Games, is a survival horror title that immediately sets out to do things a little differently. After spending time with the game, I’d comfortably land on a 3.75 to 4 out of 5, depending on how much its quirks work for you. It’s a solid, sometimes frustrating, often clever experience that clearly knows its audience.
From the outset, I Hate This Place doesn’t hold your hand. The game drops you into its world with minimal guidance, leaning heavily into its comic‑book, pulp‑horror aesthetic. Visually, it’s striking at first glance, with bold colours and heavy outlines that clearly draw inspiration from its comic origins. However, the hybrid 2D/3D top‑down perspective can be a mixed bag. While the art direction is strong, the camera angle sometimes makes movement and spatial awareness feel awkward.
Like many dungeon‑crawler‑style games, areas are partially obscured until you move beneath them, with walls fading to allow visibility. This works mechanically, but there are moments where it slightly breaks immersion or makes navigation feel clunky rather than intuitive.
You play as Elena, who is very much written as a smartass. Her dialogue is often witty, but at times the sarcasm feels forced, as if the game is trying a little too hard to make her seem effortlessly cool. This issue is amplified by the way dialogue is presented. Speech bubbles appear without consistently prompting you to advance them, which disrupts pacing and occasionally pulls you out of the moment rather than drawing you deeper in.
Character movement also contributes to this disconnect. Animations can feel stiff or oddly timed, which again chips away at immersion, especially during moments that should feel tense or dramatic.
One design choice that may divide players is the death system. When I died, I was sent all the way back to the beginning. For some, this will heighten the stakes and reinforce the survival aspect. For others, it may feel punishing, particularly when experimenting or learning enemy behaviours.
Where I Hate This Place truly shines is in its sound‑based gameplay. Monsters react to noise in a very readable and satisfying way. Every footstep, interaction, or action produces sound cues that are visually represented on screen. Moving slowly produces small, subdued “thud” indicators, while running creates loud, colour‑shifting cues that can quickly draw unwanted attention. It’s an elegant system that constantly forces you to weigh risk versus reward.
The monster design is excellent. Enemies range from gooey, half‑formed horrors to fully realised nightmare creatures, each with their own presence and threat level. Their sound design is especially effective—wet, sticky, unpleasant noises that are genuinely unsettling, but in the best possible way.
Combat and stealth are both viable playstyles. You can engage enemies directly using firearms, baseball bats, and crafted items like nail grenades, or you can avoid conflict altogether by moving carefully and choosing when to make noise. I experimented with both approaches and found stealth far more rewarding—partly because the systems support it so well, and partly because I’m a terrible shot. Thankfully, the game accommodates both types of players without forcing one approach over the other.
The soundtrack leans heavily into an ’80s synth vibe, very reminiscent of Stranger Things. Whether that works for you will come down to taste. For me, it mostly worked, though it occasionally veered into being a little kitschy.
Overall, I Hate This Place is a strong survival horror experience with smart mechanics, great monster design, and a compelling soundscape. Its flaws—pacing issues, stiff movement, and occasionally forced dialogue—hold it back from greatness, but they don’t derail the experience. For fans of survival horror who enjoy tension, stealth, and atmosphere, this is absolutely worth your time.
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