Terminal Shift Review (Xbox Series X|S & PC)

I wouldn’t peg an airport as a naturally eerie place, but Terminal Shift fools me into believing otherwise. In any other case, I’d view a terminal as a comforting destination. But in this instance, I see it as a darker, slightly more mysterious location that shouldn’t be treated as a homeward bound purgatory. The null and void boarding passes; the vacant aisles of seats; and the leftover luggage that has no owner, no recipient, and nowhere to go except the static conveyor belt. The idea of a vacation sounds great, but with anomalies at the heart of the concourse, even the duty free feels like a roadblock.

For the record, I adore a good anomaly hunting game. But what I don’t like, however, is an anomaly hunting game that favors mindless jump scares over genuine horror and suspense-building. Thankfully, Terminal Shift opts for another route that’s slightly more favorable—a path that is predominantly littered with light fragments of terror and seduction-based gameplay. The task might be the same—to identify ripples in the atmosphere and to locate objects that can drag you closer to your final destination—but the process feels calculated, more refined, and less cluttered.

Terminal Shift isn’t so much about spotting anomalies in the world as it is about unearthing numbers in the darkest of terminals to formulate a complete code. In any other case, you would be on the lookout for things that defy logic. But here, you’re on the hunt for small but seemingly significant formations that represent a digit. Ten numbers are needed to unlock the door, yet each loop around the terminal brings forth a second dimension for you to ponder. It might look the same, but with each step that you take, another ripple effect emerges. It’s simply your job to spot the changes and to secure that ever-elusive key code.

Of course, there is another problem here: the entity. Naturally, depending on the difficulty setting that you choose, you also have another environmental issue to deal with. In the case of Terminal Shift, a stalking foe has the ability to trace your steps and prevent you from knuckling in on each digit in the password. The longer you take to find a digit in a loop, the higher the odds of that same entity finding your location and disrupting your progress. But other than that, what you see here is what you get: an anomaly game that, while without the usual jump scares and supernatural apparitions, gives you something to hone in on.

There’s a bonus point somewhere here that represents Terminal Shift’s creativity. Oh, it’s still quite clearly accommodative of the “one step” approach, what with its lack of variety in the setting department. That said, for what it does aim to bring to its single location, it finds a lot of surprisingly creative ways to polarize the environment. The numbers for the code, for example, aren’t etched on regular notes or scraps of paper, but rather, part of the setting and embedded in the area. And so, rather than it having you search for the same clues, it tries to disguise the data in various forms.

In regards to its gameplay style, Terminal Hunt unfolds in a similar manner as Exit 8 or, say, The Cabin Factory. With that, it doesn’t feed you a lot of context. Instead, it drops you in an ominous terminal building, and it grants you the freedom to explore it at your own leisure. Occasionally, it reveals something out of the ordinary, like a pile of suitcases sprawled out in a figure of eight formation, for example. It’s simply your job to unearth the digits and punch in the code.

As with most anomaly games, there are only so many frequent flyer miles that you can truly count before the airways begin to lose their appeal. Sadly, it’s the same case with Terminal Shift. More to the point, as you only have ten digits to find and only the one area to explore, it does beg the question of whether or not there’s enough here to keep you engaged. Thankfully, it does foster a procedurally generated digit system, meaning, you always have a new code to decipher with each passing loop. That’s a good thing. Though, like most anomaly games of its kind, it is also an idea that, once you have mastered it, eventually loses its value the more you subject yourself to the location.

There’s a solid atmosphere here that works wonders on the senses. With a dank undertone and a disturbing entity that keeps you on your toes throughout the digit-fumbling process, Terminal Shift does, as a game, make for an excellent Exit 8-like experience. Granted, it would certainly benefit from a little extra breathing space, given that the entire game is set in the one condensed terminal building. But, that’s an anomaly horror, in a nutshell: liminal, light, and unsettling enough to keep you second guessing your each and every move.

For the asking price, I’d say that Terminal Shift does enough to justify the fee. That being said, there are dozens of alternate anomaly horrors that do the same things, well, better. It’s no Cabin Factory, but it does what it advertises on its box, and that alone counts for a lot here.

Verdict

Terminal Shift takes the Exit 8 formula to the airport in an all-new anomaly-based deduction horror that, like many of its kind, chooses to leave you in the dark as it weaves its secrets, its clues, and its supernatural happenings from the shadows. With an unsettling atmosphere, a turbulent loop, and some genuinely creative digit-based puzzles, it delivers a satisfying anomaly horror that, again, might not shoot for the skies, but gives you enough to justify a few extra flyer miles.

Let it be said that, while there is something of a budget-friendly indie here, Terminal Shift does exactly what it says on the tin, and then some. For that reason alone I’d say that, if you are on the lookout for a new ten-second anomaly horror to sink your teeth into, then you should consider checking in here.