If you’ve ever wondered what its like to explore rural North Wales, then you will have the chance to do that with Chasing Static, developed by Headware games and published by Ratalaika Games. The caveat being that you’re in the midst of a storm and its a psychological horror title, inspired by the original PlayStation era of horror.

You’ll take the reigns of Chris, on the way to settle his affairs after his fathers funeral but finding himself lost on the way. He stumbles across a diner and decides to stop and ask for directions. He hangs around and chats with the waitress after agreeing to give her a lift home in exchange for directions.

Shortly after, a power cut strikes the café. Chris offers help, in order to get the power up and running again, which is where our story takes a turn for the worse.

Entering The Last Stop Café was where Chasing Static sucked me into its eery atmosphere. There’s some surprisingly good voice acting on display throughout this one, which only helps to maintain a great atmosphere.

You could argue that the character models are lacklustre, but for a title based around the early PlayStation era, there isn’t much to complain about and they do fit in well with the overall aesthetic.

If you enjoy an old-school horror romp wrapped up within a walking simulator, this might just be the game for you. No combat within the runtime whatsoever, but some very light puzzle solving throughout.

A lot of the game consists of using a special device to find and watch flashbacks which can make you jump when you stumble upon them unexpectedly. Aside from that I can’t say I was ever terrified to turn a corner or on the edge of my seat whilst playing this, but it certainly has a creepy feeling about it.

With all my praise of maintaining atmosphere, there are sadly moments where this is ruined, like traversing from one area to another. Your character is met with a dead stop and a loading screen.  I can’t help but feel taken aback from the world for a brief moment.

Following along with the story is easy enough, although the ending felt anticlimactic and only left me with more questions than answered. There are 3 different endings up for grabs here, so a second and even third playthrough might help to tie up loose ends. For the most part its a very intriguing story that makes you want to keep pushing forward to try and piece it all together.

In keeping with the creepy atmosphere, is some really good audio design. Whilst there aren’t many characters, the voice actors do a great job and some of the music is very eery, with some great ambience built up with the help of the sound effects.

There was enough here for me to digest during my 4 hours play time. Some items such as the notes that build lore are miss able, and you can even miss some of the echoes (flashbacks) that are scattered around this North Wales town.

Final Thoughts

Chasing Static tries to capture the PS1 horror era again and succeeds for the most part. An aesthetically pleasing adventure through a Welsh town with some great sound design and voice acting. A story that keeps you engaged until the end, where it gets a little confusing.

Performance wise it runs fine, but I did run into trouble trying to play this on Xbox Series X the first couple of times and would get stuck on an infinite loading screen shortly after passing the introductory cutscene. This has now been fixed, i am pleased to say.

The length of the game feels perfect, coming in at around 4 hours, or maybe a little more depending on how much you explore. Chasing Static has some really good enjoyable aspects to it’s story and world, but overall it’s your average horror walking simulator that nails that creepy feeling, but fails to be scary.

Chasing Static is worth your time if you find yourself in the mood for something relatively easy to pick up and play, but don’t want to jump out of your skin.  The game is sitting with a “very positive” rating on steam and available for around £11, so it may just be worth a punt.

Whilst i wasn’t blown away by Chasing Static, I certainly enjoyed what was on offer, and am now keen to see what Headware Games does with their next title; Hollowbody.