Greyhill Incident Review (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, & PC)

Whenever anticipation for a new game builds up, it’s always a two-way wait where you don’t know whether the game will meet or thwart your expectations. Greyhill Incident is a great example of the anxiety build-up closer to launch day. It’s an indie horror title, the first from Refugium Games’ studio, which further heightens the “unknown” aspect of the outcome. 

The trailer is great, enough to spike interest in finally getting your hands on the game. Only to realize that the launch trailer pretty much covers everything you do in the first half of the game, while the other half is spent fumbling about, silently praying that the torture would just end already. 

Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, let’s do a deep-dive into the Greyhill Incident, breaking apart the story and gameplay and uncovering when and where exactly the developers went wrong. Here’s our Greyhill Incident review. 

The Aliens Are Finally Here

It would seem like the alien-invasion genre is fully stretched out. Can there really be another alien game that does it differently? A game that brings something new to the table? Upon further thought, I realized that most of the alien-invasion-themed games focus on FPS shooters. Few take the survival horror route (Alien: Isolation is the only series that first comes to mind), and that’s where Greyhill Incident’s greatest opportunity lies.

The story starts off more or less as expected. Four members of a small rural farm town, Greyhill, hop on a call via walkie-talkie to discuss the town’s recent disappearances. They’re convinced an extra-terrestrial force is at play. Perhaps call the government for help. No. The government is very much aware, a conspiracist says. But they’re set on covering it up. So, it’s up to the neighborhood watch to keep the townspeople safe.

Throughout the playthrough, you take on the role of Ryan Baker, a champion baseball player and father of one. He’s rather an emotionally unstable man, literally shouting at his son in the first few minutes of getting to know him for absolutely no reason. He’s a good neighbor, though, who goes out of his way to help others find safety. And that’s just about all the developers felt we needed to know about the guy.

Chilling, Tense Nights 

It’s dark outside. A dense fog looms over Greyhill. There isn’t much to see, partially because it takes hard-focused squinting to see a path you can take. There’s a neighbor who’s gone AWOL, so you have to cut a path through the darkness to head over to his house and investigate what’s going on. And that’s when you discover the alien flying saucers that screech to a halt in the middle of the cornfields. 

From within its interior come ordinary-looking aliens. Near-exactly the same build as the 2011 comic sci-fi road film, Paul. Perhaps the gray, big-bulging-eye aliens’ first arrival on Earth caught me by surprise. It was certainly one of the most tense moments I experienced. Then, Ryan’s son got beamed up to one of the ships, and it seemed certain that we would need to explore the ship for ourselves to rescue him.

But Greyhill Incident quickly swept Ryan’s abduction under the rug, sending us down an errand-boy rabbit hole. Firstly, we would need to get our hands on tin foil. Apparently, it helps protect you from aliens. So, we go on searching for it in the conspiracist’s house, where he mentioned that he did use tin foil to shelter himself from the aliens. This is just a wild guess because the game doesn’t tell you where to go. 

Trust in You 

Seriously, all of your time in the Greyhill Incident is spent running errands. Heading into the unknown to search for items I’m not even sure I would need to rescue my son. You also need to help out the townspeople, including one “mission” where you need to find your neighbor’s cat. But, again, there is no form of direction to guide you on where to look. There’s no map, no compass of any kind, or a hint of the objective itself. In fact, all the objective said was, “Bring the kitty to Bob; his caravan is over there.” Over where?!

The pause screen with a summary of your current objective doesn’t help much either. So, all you’re left to do is to trust in yourself that you will eventually run into the item you’re looking for. Remember, it’s hardly visible out there. The moon cuts through the town’s dense fog, creating an eerie, atmospheric surrounding. But that’s all it does, to cultivate a chilling, tense environment for you to (literally and figuratively) get lost in.

A Helping Hand

To be fair, you do get a few tools to give you a helping hand. Ryan has a flashlight he can light his path with. But it’s of no use mentioning the flashlight because it’s ultimately useless. The flashlight only turns on for a few seconds before powering down. To keep the light on, you’ll have to keep pressing on the respective control. But, there’s also another antagonizing factor to worry about: the aliens. See, turning on the flashlight alerts the aliens to your presence. And keeping it on makes it all the easier to chase you down. So, you end up barely using it at all.

You also have a baseball bat that you can use to smack down an alien at close range. However, you’re less likely to permanently put down an alien with just a bat. The most you can do is stun them enough to make a break for it. But (there are so many “buts,” bare with me), using the baseball bat will drain your stamina. So does running away. It would make sense if the stamina lasted long enough to allow you to get to a safe hiding spot. But (see what I mean?) the stamina bar runs out so quickly that you’re less likely to get that far. In fact, Ryan feels nothing like a champion baseball player. Not when he runs out of air in mere seconds and has to wait several minutes before he can refill his stamina. I assume the idea is to encourage players to use stealth. Whatever the case, using a baseball bat and running away is a high-risk move you’re better off avoiding.

Two Bullets Between the Eyes

Lastly, Ryan has a trusty revolver. Two shots between the eyes are enough to kill an alien. But (I promise, I’m not enjoying this), bullets are so hard to find. If you consider that aliens increase in number the further you get into the game, it becomes absolutely paramount to save your bullets for when you need them the most.

You Died

With so much working against you, it’s a no-brainer that you will, more times than not, succumb to an early death. I find that whenever the “you died” phrase comes up on your screen, with blood gushing all around you and the enemy dancing around your fallen body (if the developers so choose), it is extremely clever. There’s just a rush that goes through you when you’re so close to the brink of death because you don’t want to be the one that gets blown to bits. Still, if it happens, it's still satisfying because you’d have known that you did your all to avoid it.

Greyhill Incident gives no thought to the final takedown. Smacking an alien at close range has no impact. Neither actually kills them. They simply, uhm, fall over. On your end, an alien would grapple with you, before the final give-in that signs off with the screen going black and the words, “abducted” displaying across it. It’s a really bland sequence that takes away any tense feeling about the possibility of dying. The same goes for putting in much effort into taking down the aliens. 

If there’s no joy in the hunt, the chase down, then what’s the point of it all? Even using stealth becomes pointless, made even more so by the aliens’ somewhat constant supervision. Aliens can spot you from miles away. They can see you hiding in the cornfields. And immediately, sprint lifelessly toward you. I almost feel relieved when I get made because it cuts down on the torture of crouching all the time and moving like a caterpillar so I don’t blow my cover.

Verdict

What’s good about Greyhill Incident, you ask? Well, the chill, tense, atmospheric environment is beautifully done. But it isn’t enough to mask everything that works against it. From soulless writing, haphazard storytelling, lackluster combat, and uninteresting enemies, nearly every aspect of the Greyhill Incident is in desperate need of a little more love.