Reviews

Niktophobia Review (PC)

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Niktophobia Promotional Art

Nyctophobia [Niktophobia]

noun
1. an irrational or disproportionate fear of night or nighttime darkness.
‘My nyctophobia is debilitating during the short days and long nights of winter.’

 

It’s a fitting fear to center a horror game around, the irrational but universally common feeling of being isolated in the dark. It’s another thing to cast a web over the thought of spending the night aboard a spaceship that harbors both darkness and a seemingly sinister presence of an astronomical force. But here, in the corridors of Niktophobia, such fears act as an extension for both inescapable nightmares. It’s a co-op game, so you’d half expect the magnitude of the hilarity of the proximity chat to be the size of a space behemoth. And don’t get me wrong, said chat ensures that there is a comical side to this world. But as for the darkness? The darkness alone speaks volumes, man.

In an attempt to cram these two distinct brands of horror into the one envelope, Niktophobia comes clean with a structurally sound multiplayer-based blueprint—a concept that largely revolves around a multitude of different things, including liminal spaces,  foreboding scenes, and an alluring sense of dread. It’s an extraction-based experience, and so, the lion’s share of the journey involves sifting through opaque corridors, strategically plotting the best possible route forward, allocating roles to each team member, and utilizing a collection of tools to navigate the darkness. Granted, there’s a bit more to it than that, but we’ll touch base on the finer points in a moment.

To put you in the picture, OldYacht’s Niktophobia has just launched on PC via Steam. If you’re interested in learning more about the team’s latest co-op horror, then be sure to stick with us a while longer.

Follow Me into the Dark

Dimly lit corridor (Niktophobia)

Niktophobia tells the tale of a group of individuals—descendants of the biological and chemical threat prevention team—who have found themselves in the dimly lit chambers of a chemical research facility aboard a space station. Their mission is a simple one: locate, collect, and analyze suspicious substances and objects to determine the source of the blackouts and the extent of the damage to the station’s core. But, there’s an issue: the unpredictability of the station’s blown circuits mean that the quarters are forever battling to siphon off power to keep the lights on. In short, this means that you, along with your squadron, have to decide which routes to take, which tools to bring, and which plan of action to follow.

At its core, Niktophobia is an extraction-survival horror game that blends a glimmer of cooperative and AI-driven gameplay with a gloomy sci-fi twist. With the addition of proximity chat, each player is invited to explore the shadowy crevices of the station, extract valuable resources, and engage in classic cat-and-mouse chases with an AI enemy that essentially learns from your mistakes and adopts them to thwart your future attempts to complete objectives. This is all textbook stuff, for sure, but with the inclusion of a deeply disturbing locale and a lot of intensity in the airflow of the station itself, it’s also an absolute delight to tiptoe through. Well, it is and it isn’t; the darkness can prove to be a pain in the backside. But we’ll talk about that in a second.

The Deeper You Go

Co-op gameplay (Niktophobia)

I can’t bring myself to slate the atmospheric value of the space station and its inner caverns, because quite frankly, the game captures the essence of its chosen theme incredibly well, with a lot of impactful effects, set pieces, and eerie visuals to call its own. However, where the game often excels in its audiovisual design, it also falls short in several other areas, including its navigational system, lack of context, and its janky mechanics, for example. It isn’t the sort of game that holds your hand and walks you through the motions, and without a tutorial to guide you, it is, in all honesty, about as transparent as a cinder block smothered in oil. And that’s a major problem for those who might be wanting something with more context, as it doesn’t necessarily give you the tools to learn much of the lore, or even what you’re looking for.

It’s a dark game, and so, naturally, it’s a pain in the neck to navigate. Thankfully, you do have a flashlight to keep you imprisoned in a small cone of light. But when I say small cone of light, I mean it. In most cases, you can’t see much further than a couple of meters, which means that you often have to rely on the proximity chat to find your next destination. Perhaps this was an intentional decision made by the devs, if only to elevate the sense of being alone in an unusual setting. Even still, chilling atmosphere aside, I can’t say that feeling around the dark always makes for prime time entertainment. To put it bluntly, there is an uphill struggle to learn how it all works. The question is, is the payout worth the trouble? Eh — yes and no.

Verdict

Co-op gameplay (Niktophobia)

I said it before and I’ll say it again: using the fear of the dark effectively makes such theatrical love letters to sci-fi horror all the more terrifying to read. In an ideal sense of the word, Niktophobia brings the static energy of the titular fear to a fitting anchor point—to a place where darkness and outer space merge into a one-of-a-kind vessel of unrelenting power. It’s a darn good representative for the hybrid, too, with a good amount of unsettling moments, viable modes of play, and atmospheric exploration to keep the world orbiting on its own formidable axis. And it’s a good co-op game, too, even if, say, it does often fail to deliver a structurally sound gameplay experience.
While it’s no secret that these extraction-based horror gigs are a dime a dozen in this day and age, there are a few that manage to break supernova status amongst a surplus of fallen stars. In the case of Niktophobia, it’s a fitting candidate to don the flag for the genre, as it does generate some genuinely chilling frights and a lot of well-orchestrated encounters with the AI. With all of that said, there are still several issues that could do with a little extra elbow grease here, such as the snap angle controls or the lack of context in the initial startup phase. Don’t get me wrong, everything works as it should, but there are a couple of loose threads that could do with some attention in future updates. If those threads happened to be removed, then sure, I’d happily jump back into the dark for another rummage around.

Niktophobia Review (PC)

7.5
Review Scoring

We’re Going to Need a Bigger Flashlight

If you can gloss over the lack of context and hand-holding, and not to mention the one or two minor audiovisual errors, then you might come to unravel a pretty compelling psychological horror here. It isn’t pretty, nor does it bring anything particularly new to the table, but where it falls short in originality, it does manage to bring some genuinely interesting and, more importantly, binge-worthy stories to the table.

Jord is acting Team Leader at gaming.net. If he isn't blabbering on in his daily listicles, then he's probably out writing fantasy novels or scraping Game Pass of all its slept on indies.