It’s not often that a game leaves you genuinely angry by the time you’re done with it, which is possibly one of the most loaded opening sentences to a video game preview that has ever existed. Helios Hotel: The Night Shift is a first-person ‘horror’ game that sees you put in place as the new night receptionist of a creepy hotel. As you go through the game, things get weirder and weirder, culminating in some incredibly scary and out-of-the-ordinary happenings indicating something is very wrong. Then the game is over, and it’s only been 40 minutes….cool.
Helios Hotel: The Night Shift Preview– Early Access Without Saying It
Honestly, a horror game being 40 minutes isn’t in and of itself an issue. Hell, we enjoyed the crap out of The Hole, and that had a similar sort of running time. The real reason that Helios Hotel can go and bite one is because it has been released as a full title, but it is still missing half of the four brief chapters required to finish out the storyline. It doesn’t actually have an Early Access banner on the Steam page either, this is for sale as if it is finished, but there’s not even enough content to keep you playing for longer than you’d get for a tea break.
It seems to be something of a trend with first-person horror titles on Steam. We had a similar issue with the recent title Dreamcore, where the game only featured 2 of the advertised 5 chapters, but it didn’t actually sell itself as an Early Access game (though it’s worth pointing out that Dreamcore is anthological, making it less bad). Clearly, the moniker has become so loaded with disappointing baggage that indie devs are shying away from it, though they’re going about it all wrong. If you think people are untrusting of your Early Access title, imagine how pissed off most of them will be when they buy your “fully finished game”, only to find that they’ll have to wait another 6+ months to actually get the ending you’ve promised.
Rant Aside, How’s the Game?
With that major complaint out of the way, it’s time to talk about the state of the game as it currently stands. It’s a very janky experience, with animations and dialogue being particularly strange and off-kilter. That’s not necessarily a problem as it does a decent job of putting you in a weird state of mind that can make horror more effective. The problem becomes more apparent when you start to realize that 99% of the ‘scares’ are just sudden violin stings with characters appearing behind you.
The dialogue, while off-kilter, is also a little humorous in places, which does sort of ruin the horror tone, but considering you’ll only be in the game for 30 minutes, and very little major scary stuff happens in that time, it’s hardly worth concerning yourself with. Even the completely out-of-nowhere, comedy-relief ghost-hunter characters show up at the last second for absolutely zero payoffs because the gameplay runs out 5 minutes after their intro.
A Story That Is Going Places?
That’s not to say that Helios Hotel has no redeeming qualities. Clearly, there is supposed to be an overarching narrative here. There’s a lot of talk about a nearby oil field that appears to be the only means of employment in the area apart from the hotel itself. It’s also the location of various escaped criminals and/or acts of random vandalism, with many hints indicating it is going to be significant to the story down the line.
There are also a lot of references to the sun, with Helios itself being a reference to the Greek god of the sun, and your boss, Mr. Sol, being another name referencing the burning ball of gas we all rely on to see properly. Clearly, it’s all supposed to mean something, but because the game is only actually half finished, we have no idea what. Yet. I just sort of doubt it’s going to be worth coming back to find out.
Final Thoughts
Helios Hotel: The Night Shift is not a good game. Frankly, it’s lucky that because it’s unfinished, I didn’t feel capable of giving it a full review. If this had been a full review, it would have needed to receive a score, and that score would have been quite disheartening to the developer, I’m sure. As it stands, I have zero faith that the developer will actually finish their product, mostly because anyone willing to release an unfinished product acting like it’s ready for purchase doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Then again, it’s about £2.50 at full price, so maybe that’s cheap enough that it doesn’t matter.
