The year is 1979, Adam & Emma make a change and leave the city for the countryside, so that Adam can safely continue on with his work, which if done correctly, could alter the course of the Cold War. It doesn’t take long for Adam to realise that everything isn’t as it seems and that himself and Emma aren’t safe. They soon come up against the same dangers a past resident of the house faced back in the 19th century.

Developed and published by the team at Illusion Ray, The Beast Inside launched on PC way back in October of 2019. Illusion Ray have gone back and re-launched this title again for the console crowd this year (29th November 2022).

The Story

The Beast Inside starts off quite strong and instantly pulled me into its story. Right after the into and subsequent first chapter I couldn’t wait to continue on with the story to see how it all developed. Sadly (and this might just be a personal problem of mine) I feel like the story gets more confusing and harder to keep up with the further you get along. As I progressed past each chapter, I became less and less familiar with what was going on surrounding the story.

Illusion Ray have a nice approach to the story, however, you play one chapter through as Adam, then it throws you into the shoes of Nicolas, the tenant who inhabited the house 100 years prior. This switches up every chapter.

Nicolas’ chapters however are experienced exclusively in the dark. These chapters are where you’ll begin to feel a lot less comfortable, as you find yourself in some scary situations with some questionable characters. Nicolas’ chapters help piece together the overall story with Adam, if you can follow it, that is.

Continued on in the hope that the conclusion might answer some questions and clear up any confusion, which it did, but it also just left me with more questions too! From what I could follow along with story-wise, I quite enjoyed it and it’s certainly an interesting one.

Gameplay

As previously mentioned, chapters are split between the perspective of two protagonists, Adam and Nicolas. Adam’s chapters consist mostly of exploration and solving puzzles. You’ll be finding tools and cracking codes during your time with Adam. Adam’s chapters are definitely the more pleasing of the two in the sense of story, as I felt I could somewhat keep up with it here, as you weren’t in any immediate danger.

You are free to roam around and explore, searching for clues and solving puzzles at your leisure, leaving loads of spare time to find notes or items that contain a hidden message that can help piece together the going-ons.

Adam also has the use of a Quantum Localiser, allowing you to trace recent past events of a possible stalker. For the most part there isn’t any combat, aside from one section where you gain access to a revolver. All of Adam’s chapters playout during the daytime, so you can just freely explore and take in some quite beautiful surroundings in parts.

Nicolas’ chapters are where the spooks roll in, but not always in a consistent fashion. There are some really well placed scares that completely caught me off guard, but also annoyingly some instances where they felt over the top and as if they just wanted to throw them at you.

Nicolas’ chapters are all about the spooks. You wont be solving puzzles or hunting for clues, instead you’ll be fighting ghosts and running for your life! Nicolas’ chapters feel a bit hit and miss for me, some of them were great, others I couldn’t wait to finish.

There’s a couple of decent boss fights, but I wouldn’t describe them as memorable. The atmosphere is really great in parts, and there are some good scares in here too. There are some pretty cool, adrenaline fuelled chase sequences too, when they don’t overuse QTE events within them that is.

The Wrap-Up

Overall, The Beast Inside is a decent horror (ish) experience. Mixing in a good amount of puzzling and exploration, which results in a decent amount of fun to be had. Although, I must say I would be really enjoying a certain part, to then be hoping for the next part to be finished with quickly. Some chapters are a lot more fun and engaging than others, whilst the latter ones can feel somewhat tedious.

Visually the game is beautiful, especially outside in the woods amongst all the foliage, which you’ll get to explore a lot with Adam. There seems to be a lot of care and attention to detail in this department, virtually everything can be picked up and it all just looks fresh. The bright and happy moments feel great and the dark, atmospheric moments look terrible (in a good way).

Some of the scares hit, some of them miss. I feel this is one area the dev’s could have worked on, as sometimes they feel overused and a little cheap, that said a few of them still managed to catch me off guard and were used quite effectively. The chase scenes were actually pretty cool but again, another overuse, this time being QTEs. They just felt, unnecessary?

Characters aren’t really memorable and as I mentioned previously, the story does get a little confusing whilst you’re progressing towards the finale, which then doesn’t answer all of your questions. Might need one of those talented YouTube folk who summarise stories for this one!

If you’re after an experience that’s going to leave you on the edge of your seat crying, this isn’t the game for you. This is for people who fancy a bit of a mixed bag and a different kind of approach to horror. Whilst there are good scares, this isn’t going to give you the same feeling as searching for batteries for you camera in Outlast 2.

The Beast Inside doesn’t necessarily do anything bad, more so, too often? Like the use of QTE’s or jump scares. For the amount of small gripes I have with it, I did still enjoy it for the most part. The main one I’ve mentioned a few times is the story, which although for me was hard to keep up with. And when I did manage to keep up with it, it had me deeply interested.

It’s worth a go for the asking price of £20.99, so long as you’re not solely focused on the horror and you can keep up with a story better than I can. There’s plenty of time to wrap your head around it as this took me around 13 hours to complete, so for you completionists, I’m sure you can make that an easy 20 hours!

Is 20 hours enough to find The Beast Inside?