Hollowbody is a dystopian cyberpunk survival horror game developed by Headware Games, a British development studio created by Nathan Hamley whose previous works included a game I had previously played (Chasing Static) as well as a point and click adventure game created in the style of the nineties (Guard Duty). The history of this game dates back to when the Kickstarter campaign was released, which I had backed after talking to a buddy of mine about it and finding the promise of a “Cyberpunk Silent Hill” title to be intriguing. While I personally wouldn’t pay much attention to it until the release date, there were tidbits of interesting ideas that would come out from the Kickstarter. For example, it would go on to hit goals like “hidden radio messages” and a “post game first person mode” and apparently even an unmet goal of “striking a match” (burning enemies ala Evil Within) but seemingly brushing past met goals like The Last Stop Cafe from Chasing Static and wasn’t able to include a Shopping Mall. Regardless, the goal was to create a game inspired by the likes of the Silent Hill series as a tribute while also creating something unique on its own, and having finished all three endings and all difficulties, I have some thoughts I’d like to throw out there.

https://www.backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/2126837/ (for plot, sound design, graphics, weapons and enemy thoughts)

Hollowbody’s main skeleton is structured around survival horror, which in itself consists of avoiding combat whenever you can along with solving puzzles and collecting items while progressing through a horrifying story. Starting with the puzzles: the puzzles for the most part are rather simple, with it usually being “pick up this item and go here”, like for example picking up chopsticks and placing it into an electric switch in order to solve a switch puzzle which turns on electricity. Other puzzles are literally “pick up C4 and place it on brick wall” level stuff, with the most brain power required for a puzzle being at the church. This puzzle requires you to look at graves in a graveyard that have lanterns lit up, and afterwards lighting those candles at an altar inside the church. I prefer the logic puzzles over the overly convoluted puzzles and for the most part I feel that one could go through without worrying about guides too much, at least after the first time. The only puzzles I can really talk about per say otherwise include one in the sewers and the final boss. Starting with the sewers, there’s a good chance that after you collect the hearts that it might just skip you out into a long tunnel hallucination: don’t worry about it, solving the heart puzzle doesn’t do anything for you anyways. [spoilers]The final boss itself is basically “bring the boss past some bombs then press a button to blow them up”, with each difficulty raising the amount of bombs needed by one (i.e. Intended being three to four and Punished being four or five).[/spoilers] There are also collectibles you can obtain which can vary from notes you can pick up in your environment to COTEC conversations inspired by Chasing Static where you get a sort of flashback conversation that gives you story information. In fact, some of these puzzles require backtracking, specifically after grabbing the fuses from the convenience store; this will allow you to [spoilers]grab the Flamethrower weapon (after using the fishing rod thing) along with grabbing intel off of the dead man (if he killed himself) as well as discovering the backstory of Hollowbody (though this doesn’t require fuses and instead has you travel as far back as right after the apartment);[/spoilers] all of these are of course located in the guides below. One last collectible: when you enter through the apartments for the first time after climbing the dumpster, click on the shelving to your immediate left ten times to get an exclusive outfit; I’m not sure if this is set to certain copies of Hollowbody only or if the way of unlocking it is only told to backers but if you want a special outfit then there it is, though I’m not sure if this is the Ghost in the Shell inspired outfit promised in the Kickstarter or not.

Hollowbody was a title whose promise I had absolutely loved and was genuinely excited for, a cyberpunk survival horror game after all? Awesome! To answer a thought that I had at the beginning, a question was proposed in my head. Does this live up to Silent Hill as a tribute? How is it as a survival horror game? I will say that for the most part, it certainly hits a lot of the marks that I had wanted. When I first played through the game, while I hadn’t played Silent Hill 2 (will be rectified soon), it made me feel like Hollowbody captured that exact same first feeling that Silent Hill 2 would capture. The atmosphere is grimy and spooky, the voice acting and soundtrack is solid and after exploring and learning more of the background plot, I like a lot of the ideas that it proposes. That being said, I also had some issues with the title like I had with Chasing Static. While luckily I didn’t encounter glitches that would mess with endings like I wanted in the previous game, I had a couple of issues with certain A.I. in enemies (along with the lack of unique enemy design) and certainly a sewer puzzle that had left me confused me at first along with some confusing plot stuff. However, I will genuinely say that it certainly stands out with other modern survival horror titles like SIGNALIS; however I feel like it’s missing a feeling that truly feels satisfying and whole. I don’t regret backing it in the slightest, I liked the game a lot and it’s a unique title that stands apart from other games who attempt to delve into nostalgia. However, it feels like the gameplay needs more “oomph” with more development and maybe some more emotional moments that hit (subjective), but I would still say it’s worth your time. At this moment, the game is 16.99 for around 4-5 hours for a first playthrough so I would perhaps say wait for a sale; that being said though, while I don’t really know what kind of game that Headware would create next, this is a huge step up from Chasing Static and I’m really interested in what comes around for the future.

Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Hollowbody
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headwaregames/hollowbody/description
https://www.headwaregames.com/
https://x.com/headwaregames
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32059391/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZBFeEGaFck
https://www.headwaregames.com/hollowbody
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgYigzk6wT_npy-9pFJ4-tt1oxUOfC3iI
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3310992466

If you want a faithful recreation of a ps1-era survival horror game, then look no further and play Hollow Body.
If you want a game that is novel and interesting in its own right, then maybe skip this one out.

+ves
The fact this was made by one person is pretty insane
Visuals are top notch
Visuals are top notch again, it's gorgeous.

-ves
half of the game is spent with some rando following you, who adds NOTHING, mechanically nor thematically.
enemies pose no threat whatsoever, just walk past them.
feels more like a prologue/teaser than it does an actual game, feels like 50% of it was cut. If this game was actually a prologue/teaser, I'd say it was really really good.

Fair puzzles, nice atmosphere + ambient soundtracks with an interesting story, for the price the game is fairly short (but has some replay value due to multiple endings)