Paratopic (2018)

'Paratopic is probably the most important first-person game this year.' Waypoint You got caught smuggling VHS tapes across the border, and now there's hell to pay. You want to find an elusive rare bird in the forest and snap its picture. You have to kill a man in the back room of a shady diner. This is Paratopic, an experimental first-person horror game named by Rock, Paper, Shotgun as one of the best games of 2018, and by FACT mag as having one of the top 10 soundtracks of the year. A narrative, horror tinged adventure game that takes you on a journey through a cruel fever dream world. Cutting between numerous detailed and varied vignettes, unravel how the stories of three separate characters intersect. Explore the detritus of forbidden industry, kill, drive through the night, find yourself in conversation with some very off-kilter individuals. A leisurely playthrough should take forty five minutes give or take, with plenty more to discover in the detailed, grimey low polygon environments. Or speedrun it, if you'd prefer. Over an hour of gorgeous dark ambient music is used to create our subtly dynamic soundscape. An anachronistic blend of modern and outdated production as glitches and textural pads meet synthesis & sampling akin to a haunted recollection of 90s Unreal Engine soundtracks.