From the moment you step into I Hate This Place on PlayStation 5, it’s clear Rock Square Thunder aimed for something that wears its comic-book lineage on its sleeve. The game’s premise – scavenging, crafting, and surviving in a cursed, reality-bending land – is atmospheric and rife with potential, supported by a dynamic day-night cycle that pushes players to prepare and strategize rather than merely fight. Over the hours with the game, you’ll shuttle between eerie forests, desolate bunkers, and the titular ranch, all rendered in a punchy, stylized aesthetic that nods to its ’80s horror roots. The visual flair is one of I Hate This Place’s consistent selling points: bold outlines and saturated colors give each environment personality, inviting curiosity even when the systems beneath them falter.
Narratively, the experience is a mixed bag. The setup – Elena’s journey through Rutherford Ranch after a ritual gone wrong – has inherent intrigue, and the world hints at deeper mysteries spread across side quests and NPC encounters. Yet, the narrative depth often feels lacking; characters never quite resonate, and motivations remain thin, leaving the story feeling more functional than compelling. This “flatness” in emotional engagement means that the threatening backdrop frequently feels disconnected from what you’re actually doing on screen.
Mechanically, I Hate This Place binds its survival systems tightly to its horror framework, with sound-based stealth emerging as a core tension engine. Enemies that hunt by noise rather than sight make every step and gunshot a calculated gamble, a design choice that pays off in moments of genuine suspense. This blend of stealth and survival – where a misstep can draw a horde – is one of the game’s cleverest elements. However, the promise of these systems isn’t always fulfilled; the resource economy and crafting loops that should underpin tension can feel too generous or poorly integrated, diluting stakes that should feel sharp.
Combat and controls amplify this dichotomy. On paper, a twin-stick approach combined with crafted weapons and melee tools sounds satisfying. In practice, combat often feels underwhelming, with sluggish responsiveness and moments where melee strikes outpace firearm effectiveness in strange ways. As with stealth, this creates an odd tension where avoidance sometimes feels more rewarding than engagement, but not always for reasons that enhance the genre’s horror intent.
Performance and polish issues further complicate the experience. On PlayStation 5, we ran into a few small bugs, dragging temporary frustration into what should be immersive exploration. Even when not game-breaking, rough edges in menus, interactions, and occasional navigation oddities pull focus away from the world the art direction works so hard to sell.
Where I Hate This Place shines most is in its sensory design. The soundtrack’s ’80s horror vibe and environmental soundscape consistently elevate the atmosphere, helping stitch tension together where narrative or mechanical cohesion falls short. Visual effects like on-screen sound indicators reinforce the game’s identity, making encounters feel stylish and distinctive even if the underlying systems don’t always stick the landing.
Ultimately, the PlayStation 5 version of I Hate This Place is a project filled with compelling ideas that don’t always coalesce into something fully realized. Its ambition – melding survival horror, stealth, base crafting, and a comic-inspired aesthetic – is admirable and often engaging in short bursts, but inconsistency in execution means the experience can be as frustrating as it is intriguing. Fans of stylized horror and survival mechanics may find enough here to justify the journey, while those seeking tighter narrative cohesion or more refined gameplay might walk away wishing it had spent a little more time in development.
Score: 6.3/10
Press Play Media 