To begin with, I am not a fan of the Blair Witch franchise. I watched the original movie because of the friend’s recommendation and it was… eerie… that’s all. No deep plot or sudden revelation at the end. I also watched the 2016 sequel/remake and it was just boring self-copying. Nonetheless, I enjoyed other games from Bloober Team (Observer, The Medium), and seeing Blair Witch on sale with 80% off, I decided to give this game a chance and was pleasantly surprised…

Story. In my opinion, the story here is much better than in any movies because it is more than just “a few students got stuck in a paranormal forest shooting a documentary”. I cannot say it’s super deep or interesting, however, there are some quirky elements to it and considering the short duration of the game (4-6 hours for a blind playthrough), the plot will keep you engaged most of the time. There are two endings which is good. What is not good is that whatever choices you make, you cannot get a good ending on the first playthrough because one of the crucial items just doesn’t spawn there, and I doubt many people would go on a re-run just for a few different lines, ending cutscene, and final screen. Good ending also has ridiculous conditions on the level of “yeah you saved all the characters and did all the right choices, however because you have that one strange doll in your inventory you go insane”. They could have at least made 3 endings – bad, normal, and best – and reserve the last one for the most dedicated players. Last but not least, I think the final chapter is too protracted… seriously on the first playthrough it felt like I spent a quarter of the game there.

Music and Atmosphere. The music is okay, I did not remember any specific tracks, however, it creates the atmosphere. As for the atmosphere, I personally did not find the game scary. I jumped liked 3 times because of jumpscares (which does not count), yet all the other time I was more engaged into gameplay rather than dreaded by the surroundings. The original movie made me feel uneasy much more. Nonetheless, the kind of atmosphere the developers did nail is being lost in a forest. You can have excellent topographic memory and try to explore the surroundings logically, however, you will eventually return to the point where you started from despite all you efforts. Even though sometimes it is very noticeable how the game teleports you, this atmosphere of confusion and lostness is still persistent till the end.

Gameplay. The game is mostly a walking simulator where you explore the environment, collect items of interest and solve trivial puzzles, however, there are a few interesting mechanics. Firstly, you have a 90s phone which has an insane level of interaction: you can receive and make calls, change its settings and even play games on it. Some of the calls will also affect the ending. Secondly, you have a dog companion whom you can give commands and who will help you to solve some puzzles. The dog can also be customized at the start of the game, which is a good thing, however, he will still remain default in the cutscenes. Also, the dog part of the ending seems to be broken; if you are not afraid of light spoilers: on the second playthrough I ignored the dog entirely and did not save him, yet he still survived. Finally, you have a camera which can play tapes, and by forwarding and reversing the footage, you can materialize and manipulate objects that are depicted on those tapes., The camera also has a night vision mode if you want to go hardcore without the flashlight. Last but not least, the game has manual saves which makes doing an all collectibles run a bit less tedious.

What is not interesting is the amount of unfixed bugs despite the game being almost 7 years old. HDR Is supported and it makes the forest look magnificent during daytime, dusk, and overcast, however, when it is total pitch-black night, it looks atrocious. The image basically falls apart to: total black, oversaturated textures around a light source, normal looking objects. It feels like the developers just turned on HDR support in the engine settings but never tested it during actual gameplay. Ultra settings break the camera display. On top that, I also got stuck in textures 3 times during all my 3 runs and had to reload a save. Finally, the game simply refuses to work on the latest generation of processors and you have to have to tweak the launch settings to fix it.

Conclusion. Overall, despite a relatively broken technical state and some cons, I still enjoyed playing Blair Witch by Bloober Team. Even though it was not scary for me, I definitely liked it much more than the movies. If you are a fan of the franchise this is a must play. Nonetheless, even if you do not know anything about the Blair Witch but look for an interesting horror for an evening or two, I still recommend checking this game out.

P.S. Also if you are fan of the franchise, I recommend checking out the episodic Blair Witch game from 2000. I did not play it personally, however, the description seems promising because it expands the lore instead of just copying the movie.

这游戏总体氛围做的还挺好的，也就这点好处了。这游戏指引特别差，特别容易错过一些游戏内容。好坏结局玩完了，思路方面上的指点很难想的到看的出，想不到自己到底干了啥就走向一方结局了，尤其是好结局极为苛刻。前面稀里糊涂玩下去了，到了后面废弃屋子自己做出选项更是磨不清头脑了，一不小心就成了坏结局，非要等剧情台词念完心里才有个底，手快但凡一点，结局走向就变了（我说转身看见警长影子上去就想点，点完了触发剧情了，你游戏才做出思想上的提醒，逆天）。后段也是整个跟层层恐惧差不多，但是玩法上稀里糊涂，剧情上更是。总之感觉这游戏差的最大问题，现在就是指引暗示方面上，关键信息，地图走向。结局取向做的都很隐晦。玩起来就很难受，很容易就达不到自己理想结果，或者就稀里糊涂到了结局，最烦了。

I am going to start off by saying I am incredibly biased in my opinions on anything Blair Witch related. I love the original movie so much, and basically anything tangentially related to it gets a pass from me. The concept of its lore is so terrifying, and the setting of the “endless” woods is just so perfect. And this is definitely where the game plays to Bloober Team’s strength: the environment here is fantastically made, built with tremendous tension, and backed up by incredible sound design. The feeling of being in the Black Hills Forest alone gives this game a thumbs up for me.

But the rest of the game is mostly just passable - it is mostly a walking simulator so gameplay is fairly limited. They do what they can to introduce some puzzle-solving and gameplay elements (ie the video camera sections). Some of it is interesting, some of it not so much. I didn’t have too much of an issue with some of the liberties they take with the lore, but die hard fans may not like all of it. The story is again, passable enough to keep you invested and seeing what happens next, but nothing that will blow you away. The addition of Bullet, your dog-sidekick, was welcome: you can’t help but feel attached to him immediately, and his presence is definitely calming in some of the tense moments in the game. The Blair Witch is an impressively atmospheric game, mixed with some passable gameplay elements, and most importantly: full of some very well done scares.