I Hate This Place Review

There’s something innately scary about being in the woods alone at night. Even if you’re somewhere you know is safe, it’s still freaky to not be able to see past the edge of your torch beam. As humans, we’re biologically hard-coded to be on edge in the places where our ancestors used to survive. That instinct can transfer over to video games, too. There’s a reason why so many horror titles take place in swamps, forests, or desolate tundras. It rarely matters what monsters you’re hiding from in them, only that they exist in environments filled with spooky noises. I Hate This Place is set in a swamp. And consequently, it’s unnerving to play despite the game’s comic book aesthetics and more-or-less straightforward gameplay. But, unlike most other horror games, it doesn’t rely exclusively on jump scares and body horror to be enjoyable. 

I Hate This Place is full of cliches, and it knows it. The biggest one is its premise. You play as Elena, a woman who ignores her common sense and returns to her family’s homestead to uncover the mysteries within it. That farm is conveniently, or perhaps inconveniently, located in a haunted swamp. There are mutated monsters, abandoned government bunkers, and cult members everywhere. And you’re tasked with dealing with all of them while also attempting to find one of your missing childhood friends. I Hate This Place is an isometric quasi-open world shooter with a heavy emphasis on crafting and looting. It involves moving slowly through spaces that feel actively unwelcoming, while shooting horrors and throwing every resource you find into your in-game backpack. 

‍
‍I Hate This Place’s gameplay is significantly more interesting than its story. The latter isn’t bad, mind. It’s intentionally camp. Its characters are overly-serious cliches, and its narrative predictable but enjoyable. The game’s dialogue is well-written, leaning into pulpy genre shorthand rather than naturalism, and the strong voice acting sells its self-aware tone. It ultimately takes a back seat to I Hate This Place’s gameplay, though, which is significantly less trope-filled and is a weird mash-up of genres. At its core, it's a survival-lite looter shooter where you need to keep your character armed, fed, and hoovering up every crafting component you find. However, one of your main tasks in the game is to improve your family’s farm by building crafting stations. And you’re better off sneaking past enemies whenever you can. The result is a game that feels distinctive not because it reinvents the proverbial wheel, but because of how deliberately it combines them. Although there are countless other games with similar loops, the fact that I Hate This Place is both single-player only and has a strong narrative focus means it’s distinctive within its space. 

But, more importantly, I Hate This Place is fun. It’s an extremely satisfying title to play. Combat is tuned to feel dangerous without being overly punishing, with weapons that hit hard enough to reward preparation but never let you feel completely safe. Its environments are intuitive to navigate, too. You have a seemingly never-ending list of tasks, but it’s enjoyable to complete them. The game’s overhead perspective works to its benefit, and ensures you’re never guaranteed to survive a combat encounter. When/if you do, though, you’re almost always rewarded with a new crafting blueprint. That forces you to scrounge more resources, thus repeating its core gameplay cycle.

Unlike in a lot of other survival-lite titles, though, you won’t be in any rush to do so. The best part of I Hate This Place isn’t its camp narrative or its gameplay. Instead, the game’s atmosphere is the proverbial star of its show. It simultaneously nails its 1980s aesthetic and still manages to be downright horrifying at times. The title doesn’t have many jump scares, nor is it excessively gory. Instead, its bunkers and forests are tailor-made to make you perpetually feel on edge. And you’ll want to walk around in them, because I Hate This Place has a vibe that’s hard to describe. The game’s visuals and music are fantastic, and the sounds that play as you navigate them are eerie. They invoke the same sensation that walking through the woods at night in the real world does.

So, needless to say, it’s hard to hate I Hate This Place. For better or worse, it only takes 10-15 hours to beat the title. Those hours aren’t the kind you’ll obsess over for months, but they’re tense, enjoyable, and memorable in the moment. I Hate This Place is great, unique, and almost always enjoyable. But it’s also intentionally trite. 

If you’re a fan of horror games, or survival-lite ones, it’s well worth picking up. If you don’t like dealing with monsters or advancing through terrain that seems designed to keep you on edge, though, you won’t have a good time at Rutherford Ranch. I Hate This Place is a great game that successfully blends together a few different genres and their respective tropes. Its deliberate pacing and oppressive atmosphere mean it won’t appeal to everyone — but that focus is also its greatest strength. And if nothing else, there aren’t any places worth hating in I Hate This Place as long as you go to them with an open mind and a desire to feel freaked out.