Betrayer- Digging Up Loot With Spade

Betrayer (2014) was developed and published by Blackpowder Games

Betrayer, as rated by my experience playing through, is: Average

Blackpowder Games was created by former Monolith employees, which created many horror-based games, and Blackpowder Games follows suit. Betrayer is a bit of an odd game. It's a mix of horror, investigaton, survival, open world, and first-person shooter that makes you a unique play through, although not an entirely compelling one. The game starts off well, with a beautiful shoreline in Colonial America (Virginia, specifically) and descends into horror shortly after. While braving the Virginia wilderness you will survive against demons, in a less literal sense in the form of Spainards, creatures, and Native Americans, and in the more literal sense against aggressive ghosts.

A Maiden in Red guides your way. She is the only actual person you talk to, and your interactions are odd. The Maiden is interested in the events of the area, as she is seemingly tied to it. You will receive tips from her occasionally, and talk about your findings, sometimes offering gifts. Her presence always felt unsettling to me even though she never posed a direct threat.

Eventually, you will come across a bell.... Then you ring it, and things really get interesting. Like Silent Hill, you are taken the "Other World", and in this world things are different. You see things that aren't normally there, and you talk to lost, confused ghosts and can't remember their own names. You investigate areas related to their quests, often uncovering horrible crimes and brutality in the process, and use this information to remind these apparitions of who they are.

This gameplay template is spread out over a dozen or so open world maps of small size, which can get tedious to a degree. However, I felt the changing enemy types and variance in encounters kept a degree of freshness to the gameplay. The last quest of the game is where they make some major missteps, leading you to back track through all the areas of the game, talking to all those apparitions, in order to complete the game. It may be possible to complete the game without doing this, but I didn't attempt it. Furthermore, the final action of the Maiden in Red made little sense to me.

Visually, the game is a treat. By default, a monochrome art style is used, however you can change this in the options and put color into your game. This is that I did. The Virginia wilderness looks great, the sound of wind along with the moving of the trees and grass provides great immersion. You can almost feel the chill in the air.

Controls, if using a mouse, should be fine. I used a gamepad, and while gamepad is somewhat supported it lacked the optional features included in games meant for gamepads.

Gameplay wise, it's a first-person shooter with additional elements described above. Overall, the mixed bag of gameplay Betrayer employs works well, but definitely could have been fined tuned.

Sound is one of Betrayer's best features. In both the normal world and the other world, you listen to whispers to locate things related to your quest. These whispers are unsettling, making the experience unnerving in a good way. As mentioned above, the blowing wind provides immersion that suits the gameplay well. Enemy encounters start off with a loud sound, and the sound of the bell with make you jump. Adding to the dystopian feel of the game, the Spainards and Native Americans sound more like animals than men.

Music is minimal, and really only used in the title screen.

The story starts off well, full of mystery and intrigue. Uncovering what happened to the inhabitants of this land, and the brutal stories therein, is the game's strong point. You will uncover stories involving human sacrifice, murder, rape, treason, cowardice, and, of course, betrayal. Your jaw will hang agape as the apparitions recount, with your help, what crimes they committed whilst alive.

The stability was ok. There were crashes and bugs but nothing that stopped progression.

Betrayer, as rated by my experience playing through, is: Average

Betrayer is available on PC.

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DHG played Betrayer on PC

Part 11