Don’t Look Back Review (PC)

Spaced Out, the developer behind the paranoia-inducing walking simulator Don’t Look Back, has openly acknowledged his cowardice towards horror and all things spooky. I take that with a grain of salt, though, because weirdly, Don’t Look Back is, after some minor consideration, a surprisingly scary game. Well, it isn’t classically scary, nor is it teeming with the sweat-addled antics of a good old-fashioned chase sequence. There are no monsters to outrun, nor are there any time-based puzzles to conquer, for that matter. No, what Don’t Look Back brings to the table is something a little more primitive. Think Press W to Move Forward, along with its minimalist controls and atmosphere that relies on sound and “the fear of the unknown” to establish its presence, and that, in short, is what Don’t Look Back aims to be.

Unlike Press W to Move Forward, Don’t Look Back doesn’t require you to manually slog through a train or a densely populated area. No, the world that makes up this corridor hopper is a little more intimate and inadvertently claustrophobic. Think of a long and lonesome dirt track during the dead of night, or perhaps even a dark alley on a suburban street just before the witching hour, and you ought to be able to paint the rest of the image in your head. You walk forward, but you never know what is lurking behind you. That is, after being completely stripped down to its skeletal state, Don’t Look Back, in a nutshell.

As I said, Don’t Look Back isn’t blessed with classic good looks or the mechanical complexity of a full-fledged horror. It is, in short, a passion project that embodies a cowardly developer’s fear of the unknown. It just so happens that you also have the opportunity to fill the same shoes.

A Walk on the Wild Side

Don’t Look Back adopts the universally accepted W,A,S,D layout—the same control structure that even the most inexperienced gamer can master in, I don’t know, forty seconds. There honestly isn’t much more for you to learn here either; in fact, the only thing that you need to do in Don’t Look Back is, well, walk. And no, you don’t need to solve any intricate puzzles or muster up the courage to tackle anything even remotely taxing to progress through its short twenty-minute journey. A blessing in disguise, you could say — especially for those who would much rather plug into a simple strolling sim than a button-heavy RPG. For everyone else—the fans who would prefer to load into a deeper experience—eh, a bit of disappointment is sure to be afoot here.

Don’t Look Back leans on AI a lot to help fortify its bridges, its graphical elements and its general design. But even with the power of AI as its primary crutch, I still wouldn’t say that it’s a classically good-looking game; it’s reminiscent of an old-school Flash game, if anything. That isn’t a bad thing by any stretch, though it is a little underwhelming, all things considered. The environments, for example, are somewhat lackluster and without the visual flare of an eye-catching setting. With that, I do feel as if there’s still a lot here that could have benefited from a little extra work. It isn’t that the world is bare; it’s that it doesn’t take full advantage of the space that it has by implementing any intricate details. A small thing, though definitely something of note.

“There Is Someone…Walking Behind You”

It doesn’t take a great deal of time to beat Don’t Look Back; the journey from beginning to end ought to take you just under twenty minutes, give or take. During that time, you only have to do one simple thing: walk forward and take in the unsettling sights. There are no secret endings to unlock, nor are there any objects for you to unearth or puzzles to solve. In short, you don’t have much to do at all, except walk and hope that whatever looms behind you isn’t driven by ill intentions. Not much of a game-game, then. But hey, at least it creates a tantalizingly disturbing ambiance.

If you’re looking for a souped-up horror with plenty of bang for your buck, then it’s likely that you’ll be in for a rough ride with this brief visit into the developer’s idea for a perpetual nightmare. Frankly, it’s a short experience that doesn’t offer much outside of its bread and butter walking sim tropes. That said, if you’re willing to go for a brisk walk for the ambiance alone, then there’s a small chance that you’ll get something of an adrenaline boost from traipsing these short but oddly unsettling corridors.

Verdict

Don’t Look Back isn’t the be all, end all of indie horror games, nor is it a blessing in disguise—a sleeper hit that deserves the full backing of an entire community of thrill-seeking aficionados. It is, for lack of a better description, a minimalist walking simulator that relies heavily on primal fear and “what if” ideologies than the traditional characteristics of a densely constructed horror. But that isn’t to say that it isn’t unsettling. To give credit where it’s due, Spaced Out has managed to create something of a good experience here, and one that ought to be shared among fans of not-so-horrific entry-level thrillers. The die-hards, on the other hand, might be disappointed by the lack of genuine scares.

When all’s said and done, Don’t Look Back is a game that favors ifs over wills. More to the point, it’s a game that forces you to wonder—no, question the world that looms in your shadow. It doesn’t add much context to the situation, nor does it allow you the opportunity to take a peek over your shoulder to confront your fears. It just sort of leaves you to speculate, and then leaves you in the balance as you traipse through the process whilst you frequently question your natural instincts and the surrounding environment. It works, though it still leaves a lot left to be desired, truth be told. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.