Many games have copied Resident Evil‘s formula of taking a giant mansion, filling it with puzzles and gore, throwing in some red handled bolt cutters, green herbs, a typewriter, and a persistent pursuer that stomps around and busts through walls to destroy the player. Nyctophile Studios‘ new Aztec myth-infused FPS survival horror Death Relives is no different in those regards, but does offer a lot of unique ideas in terms of the overall plot structure and combat design, but is it a game worth playing for yourself?
The story opens on Adrián, a seemingly normal young guy who’s riding home with his mom one night when they spot someone unconscious in the road. When Adrián’s mom gets out to check on the unfortunate pedestrian, the man rises from the ground, stabs mom, and drags her off into the woods to a big spooky mansion where the bulk of the player’s sometimes spine-tingling adventure will take place.
The interior of the mansion is really intricate, and I spent a great deal of time just wandering around and looking at the architecture, décor, and also the often-obscene amount of blood and guts. Yes, this mansion is filled to the brim with death; sacrifices made by Xipe Totec, the Aztec deity of death and renewal. Guess what… that’s who took mom, and it’s up to the player to find her and escort her to safety. Granted, that’s assuming he’s able to survive the ordeal himself.
Much of the narrative is explained through hastily scrawled notes, environmental clues, and spectral flashbacks to a mythological re-imagining of historical events. Adrián is quickly provided with a powerful double-barreled lightning blasting shotgun called Xizoltic, though ammo is incredibly limited as the game does fall into the survival horror genre.
Due to the pretty noticeable lack of ammunition, the player must get creative when dealing with the various foes of the title. Xipe Totec can be stunned using Xizoltic and then stabbed with a melee attack from the ritualistic Obsidian Blade that is found in the early section of the game. Completing this cunning combination will temporarily send Xipe Totec to Mictlan, the Aztec underworld. This is best used as a last resort when every other option has been exhausted, as Xipe Totec returns from Mictlan stronger with each banishing, leading for a far more difficult late game.
The difficulty of this is mitigated however, by a magical plant referred to as the God Seed, that binds itself to Adrián’s arm and serves as a tracker for both Xipe Totec and the player’s current mission objective. The only issue with this otherwise useful organic gadget, is that it requires the blood of Xipe Totec’s priests to keep it functioning, and when it runs out… well, it takes Adrián on an untimely trip to the afterlife. This becomes more of an annoyance than anything, and something I nearly never used in my playthroughs, especially on harder difficulties that ramp up the adrenaline meter and seed drain.
I opted for the somewhat more cowardly route, hiding in closets and chests while holding my breath and managing my heart rate through expertly executing the all-too familiar quick-time event (it’s the one from The Dark Pictures Anthology games).
Regardless, if hiding wasn’t an option, as the controls were often not precise enough to accurately escape into a claustrophobia inducing box, then I would simply pop a sky-cracking shell of mystical fury into Xipe Totec, and run, run, run! With a thrilling chase soundtrack couple with the booming footsteps of Xipe Totec and a look-back feature that constantly reminded me how fast the massive monstrosity could move, I found it to be the most pulse-pounding and fear inducing elements of the game.
With that said, there’s a relatively innovative addition to the Aztec themed anxiety adventure; a smartphone companion app that turned my phone into Adrián’s phone. I could check out his social media, read alerts from the local authorities, try and call the police to no avail (of course), and the best part, text his dad who was powered by reactive AI. I was telling him all sorts of wild stuff, and he was just rolling with it.
Yes, there are QR codes throughout the game that allow the player to can them for puzzle assistance and the like, but I spent the majority of my time humorously bragging about my magic gun, how I’d have mom saved in time to grab a pizza on the way home, and pranking dad with horrible news, only to reveal time and time again that I was just messing with him. Perhaps it was in poor taste, but I enjoyed it. Apart from that, the app was filled with poorly rendered AI photos, a severe lack of interactivity with anyone else in the phone, and not-so inspired parodies of people and brands that left a lot to be desire, though I respected the effort from the devs.
Speaking of getting help with puzzles, they were pretty great. Mostly because half of them were ripped straight from Resident Evil 5 and Village, but that’s neither here nor there because I happen to be an RE super fan. Either way, I found myself playing piano, flipping breakers, adjusting paintings, lining up lasers, completing broken imagery, discovering lock combinations for doors and chests, and even the 3D building manipulation mini game from RE8 that had me maneuvering a ball into a hole to get a key. The puzzles were perhaps not the most innovative, but I surely did enjoy them.
What I didn’t enjoy were the bugs. The game has only recently released on console, and I know that the devs are working on patches at present, but after beating the game I unlocked exactly ZERO achievements even though I met the requirements for nearly all of them. There was also a pretty bad graphical issue with screen tearing, enemies bugging through walls, audio cutting out at inopportune moments, and more.
With that said, this game is highly atmospheric with its sound design when it is properly functioning, forcing the player to avoid stepping on broken glass and creaky floorboards to remain unseen by the mythical entities that seek to end them. As previously mentioned, it’s not just the big man Xipe Totec the player has to worry about; his ghostly glowing priests all serve different functions that aid in the player’s downfall.
After the player’s first trip to Mictlan, they return with a robe of rotten ancient flesh that allows them to move unseen to the priests, much like the invisibility cloak from a certain British wizard school. The player must avoid the gaze and grasp of the various entities that will flash bang them with an ear-piercing screech and bright explosion of blinding light, control their body and make them walk directly towards Xipe Totec while being fully conscious of the horror of losing their freedom of mobility, or some that will just flat kill the player… or so I’ve heard.
The brief night of unimaginable Aztec horror is somewhat fragmented with its storytelling, but the scares are certainly there, if not but for fleeting moments. The majority of the game is spent exploring the mansion and various mythological locations, searching corpses for ammo, and either running or hiding just about every couple of minutes due to the hyper vigilant Xipe Totec and his crew of creepy cronies. I spent most of the game dying in one of the myriads of different gruesome and cringe-inducing ways, all the while marveling at the pure power and chaotic carnage caused by this dark deity of death.
The game was short but fun, though with the missteps in regard to the technical errors, the poorly incorporated companion app, and the sometimes TOO persistent pursuer, I have to give it a 6.5/10. It gave me a few good scares, provided passable puzzles, decent level design (though I recognized an entire section from another indie horror game I recently played from another developer), and gave just enough story and action to keep me playing. At the indie price point, I think it’s worth trying out if you’re a fan of Outlast style gameplay, or any games featuring a lot of clear inspiration from some of the all-time greats of the survival horror genre. When they fix the achievements, I’ll go back and play it again on a different difficulty.
