Beyond Hanwell Review

Beyond Hanwell throws players into Hanwell where they’ll need to discover and explore the dark depths of London and Westminster. Your goal? Survive the horrors of London and discover the truth about the enigmatic stranger known as The Director.

Beyond Hanwell is a first person survival horror game where players will explore various areas around Westminster, find weapons, junk and complete objectives in order get to the bottom of the mystery. And yes, your progress will be hindered by various enemies throughout your exploration, but not just normal enemies.

In various buildings, you’ll be “tracked” by mannequins and have to face spiders that will literally materialize out of thing air. However, not all mannequins will track you. You’ll hear footsteps and when you turn around, the culprit will freeze; turn around and it’ll keep going until it decides to attack, but you cannot attack/kill it unless it provokes you. There’s also different enemies depending on the building you’re exploring.

Combat is pretty solid. You’ll be able to use melee weapons and firearms. Melee weapons vary from crowbars, sledgehammers, hammers, knives; just to name a few. You can only carry one at a time and they are breakable. So you need to keep a close eye on it; if it’s too damage or bloody, you’ll need to find a replacement. Using both left and right trigger, you’re able to block. Using the LT or RT individually (with melee weapons) makes you attack from the left or right respectively.

Which brings me to one of the game’s best feature: the game is completely HUD free. Meaning no health bar, no weapon status, no map, no bullet counter. Nothing. I’ve already covered how to track your melee weapon’s status, and for your health, it’s similar. You need to pay attention at your hands. For firearms, you need to count bullets if you don’t want to get screwed (they do briefly appear after reloading).

In order to find your way through the creepy locations, you’ll have a flashlight to light up your way. However, flashlight means batteries. It’ll be beneficial to explore as much as possible to find as many batteries as possible. They drain out a bit too fast. Thankfully, once the battery has run out, the flashlight is still usable as it’ll flicker instead of turning off. You’ll also be able to find glowsticks and flares to complement the flashlight.

When outside, in the city, you’re free to roam around and discover new spots. You can use a drone map which acts as a legend of sorts. White icons represent side-quests, orange ones represent main locations to progress the story whereas blue ones will only contain informational stuff. You need to explore the city to find the new explorable buildings. This is an underrated feature because those who want to explore it all, they’ll decide what to explore.

Beyond Hanwell looks great. The development team managed to craft one of creepiest gaming experiences in recent memory. Obviously, no HUD also helps in terms of immersion, but being outside, in the rain, gives an overall feel of what to expect. Each area, or “dungeons”, have a darker tones with the ideal lighting creating the perfect “what the f*ck is gonna happen now” when entering a building or exploring said building. Decent enemy variety. Sound wise, the game is ideal with headphones, but still offers a creepy atmosphere via your TV. The clink-clanking of mannequins walking behind you is terrifying.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Beyond Hanwell, but it does have a few annoying quirks. While it does add to the spooky factor, having enemies, especially spiders, manifest out of thin air is frustrating because more often than not, it’ll result in unjustified damage and by the time you find it to kill it, you’ll have suffered damage that could’ve been avoided in other cases. The workbench is also clunky to use; takes a while to figure it out.

Beyond Hanwell is one of the best survival horror experiences of the year. It features a perfect mix of puzzles and action, the ambiance is unsettling, combat is tight and enjoyable. You’ll be immersed in the world and won’t want to put it down because you’ll want to explore the city and find new buildings to enter. Fans of the genre will savor every instant of this game. Depending on your tolerance for fright, if you’re looking to dip your toes in the genre, Beyond Hanwell is a great, albeit nerve-racking, place to start. Beyond Hanwell is one of the best games of the year.