I have never taken the opportunity to dive into the twisted, cartoony world of Joey Drew Studios, until now. Bendy and The Dark Revival is a long awaited (for fans of the franchise) sequel to Bendy and The Ink Machine. So, I did what any other gamer would do and went in blind, without a clue about the franchise and started with the sequel. The Dark Revival follows on from The Ink Machine and places you in the shoes of an animator Audrey, exploring an animation studio plagued with insanity whilst trying to find your way back into the real world.

The Dark Revival is a first-person survival horror game, published and developed by Joey Drew Studios. There’s a heavy influence of Bioshock felt throughout, mixed with a Borderlands aesthetic all tied up in a creepy bow.

Stepping Into The Rapture… Wait, What?

Right from the moment you boot up this game, you will feel like you have been thrusted into some weird Bioshock spin-off title. For better or worse, The Dark Revival leans ever so heavily into it’s Bioshock inspiration. Instantly, this put me off a little bit as everything felt like it, from the pause menu, the games design and even audio cues like using an upgrade machine or when the next objective pops up on the screen, which even sounded eerily similar to 2K’s game.

Enemies will even come out of the walls in a similar fashion to Bioshock’s little sisters. The cartoony art style is very fitting and lends itself well to the world, but again feels like it draws inspiration from another game beginning with a B, Borderlands. Maybe it’s because I’ve thought about it too much at this point, but from the moment I started this one, the first two things that stuck out to me were the Bioshock similarities and the familiar Borderlands (albeit darker) aesthetic. With all this said, it doesn’t make it a bad game by any stretch, just something I felt worth noting here as I can’t help but think about it whilst I’m playing it.

Fighting Your Way Through The (Not) Rapture

Unfortunately, combat is lacking and leaves a lot to be desired. Throughout your journey, you are armed with only a metal pipe to smack enemies with, which becomes rather useless should you find yourself surrounded by a mob.

A lot of my encounters devolved into just spamming the right trigger in the hopes I took the enemies out before they got me, as you can’t dodge or even move all that fast to avoid taking a hit. This “full-on attack” strategy doesn’t seem penalised either, because if you do meet your demise against a normal enemy, you simply respawn from an ink puddle with no progress lost. This is not helped by the fact that all the enemies are one in the same, all human blobs formed of ink that all move in the same manner.

The only time you need to be careful and think about how to tackle an encounter is when you you run into the Ink Demon. Part way through the game, it will introduce this demon to you, who you are completely defenceless against. Your only option is to run and hide and wait for him to leave. When first thrown at you, it adds to the game making a nice mix of battling normal enemies, solving puzzles but also trying to steer clear of this persistent threat.

It loses a touch of effect when the game feels the need to plaster “hide, the demon is coming” text across the screen when the atmosphere changes, it would have sufficed without this. The game plan at this point is to find a crate, locker or other large item to hide in and wait for him to pass. Eventually though, tackling the Ink Demon becomes a tedious affair, as there is no rhyme or reason to his patterns and I found myself frequently being told to hide in areas with no hiding spots around me, leaving me to just stand there and wait for a swift death.

Speaking of swift deaths, players will want to keep on top of their manual saves. Being caught by the demon is an instant kill and means reloading a save is needed. The auto-save system is not your friend here, as the game seems to save in weird spots, so you could clear an area feeling like the game would save, but hasn’t, only to fall to the demon and lose 20 minutes (or so) of progress. It is crucial to keep on top of your own manual saves. Even when it felt like the auto-save system was on your side, it was still frustrating having to repeat a part because the game decided it would set the demon on me in an area where I can’t physically hide from him.

Along the way you can of course upgrade your health and stamina by finding ink canisters, as well as upgrading your Gent Pipe (melee weapon) but these don’t feel necessary or very meaningful. I did completely forgot I could upgrade my character until I ran into a canister and feel like you can complete the game whilst ignoring these. Interacting with the world can become cumbersome in itself, due to your crosshairs not lining up with objects properly and the controls feels a tad awkward when trying to be precise. (Pictured below)

Another character you will meet (who I will avoid spoiling) seems to only appear, should you seek them out. But they only serve as a jump scare, randomly appearing on the screen and charging at you, even in the middle of combat, before disappearing. Effective at first but again, growing tedious as this character repeatedly continues this after you find them. This is one that is probably best to avoid but by the time you realise, it will most likely be too late.

The Creepy World of Joey Drew Studios

For all the Ink Demon’s flaws, the voice actor absolutely shines and you can tell they definitely understood the assignment. Although encounters with him do grow tedious in places, the creepy atmosphere along with the incredible dialogue still manages to engulf you with a sense of panic, should he appear.

This becomes a running theme throughout The Dark Revival as you explore this creepy studio. The art style lends itself brilliantly to the world and the quirky characters coupled with amazing voice acting set the scene perfectly. Meeting new characters or encountering a cutscene was always something I looked forward to, as they are so well done. Where the combat begins to feel tiresome, the atmosphere always manages to save the day and keep you on the edge of your seat. While a familiar humming tone to that found in the video game Visage helped to make me feel unsettled, they do use the basic enemies well for some effective “sh*t your pants” moments.

The jump scares are well placed, bordering on being overused should you find that illusive, aforementioned character. Having moments of panic when an enemy I was trying to sneak past notices me was always great fun. The “overuse” comes into play when you have an enemy hiding in a locker that jumps out and runs at you, only to watch him run back into the same locker he jumped out of and wait for you to stroll past again.

Overall, the atmosphere is great and manages to give you the creeps thanks to some weird enemy designs and the game’s art style, with a “what is lurking around this next corner” feeling. The art style, whilst great does come with a caveat, that can sometimes make it awkward to see certain objects like ladders, leaving you to wonder where to head next.

Back In The Flesh…

As I gloss over the overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews, I can’t help but feel like I’m nitpicking with this one a little too much, but I stand by my own experience.

If you are looking for gameplay that’s going to blow you away then sadly, you will have to look elsewhere. With that said, it is certainly worth a look for it’s performance alone. The story, world building and characters all shine and come the credits, left me wanting more of this twisted world.

Taking me around 7 hours to complete, comprised of five chapters, it’s doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and I recommend picking this one up on a sale. Hopefully a sequel can make the gameplay and combat more appealing and worthwhile, whilst continuing on with a rather brilliant setting and uneasy tone.