On the surface, GYLT raises a lot of my green flags when looking at video games. Scary but not hyper-realistic? Check. Tim Burton/Henry Selick-inspired aesthetics? Check. Incredible atmosphere and graphics? Check, check, and check. I was saddened that GYLT was originally released as a Stadia exclusive, which pretty much ensured no one would ever play it (including myself), but once I saw the announcement that it was coming to other platforms I was capital-H Hyped. Five hours later, GYLT mostly lives up to what I expected from it, but the shallow story and theming holds it back from standing alongside the horror greats.
Step into the sleepy New England town of Bethelwood with 12-year old Sally, a resourceful kid in the late 80s who stumbles into a living nightmare. While out looking for her younger cousin, Emily, Sally finds herself transported to a strange, desiccated version of her own town. Buildings are falling apart, oil fires dot the darkened landscape, cars are overturned on the sidewalks, and the streets are empty… save for a few monstrous creatures, that is. Upon entering, Sally sees that Emily is trapped in this alternate dimension and resolves to rescue her cousin.
GYLT is fairly linear, and that works to its benefit. Sally gains a few different upgrades throughout the course of her journey, but primarily this is a simple stealth game. The simple gameplay again benefits GYLT, with the majority of the strategy being oriented around clearing rooms rather than through direct puzzles. After obtaining the flashlight early on, you can sneak up on enemies and assassinate them by shoving the flashlight through them. This action is silent, but not invisible, so you could still be seen by a roving raven if you’re not careful.
The enemy variety is a bit lacking, but ultimately at just five hours long, GYLT is short enough that this doesn’t matter much. None of the enemies are given in-game names, so my friend and I (who played together) took the liberty of naming them ourselves. I called the basic enemies Fish Heads while she referred to them as “Nightmare before Christmas Grunts” – they patrol the areas and attack with claws if they spot you, but can be outrun. Ravens teleport during their patrols, and have screeching attacks that can hit at a distance. Doll Children are, you guessed it, animated dolls that look like Sally and speak in her voice, urging the player to be friends. If spotted, Doll Children will rush you while their face opens up sideways to consume you.
If you don’t get the jump on an enemy, you can try to outrun it against your limited stamina. If hit, you can heal with an inhaler. Your two weapons are the flashlight which operates off limited batteries or the fire extinguisher that shoots pressurized foam to freeze enemies. There were a few boss fights sprinkled in as well, and we took down such fearsome foes as Movie Guy, Fire Hulk, and Shadow Boy. Movie Guy really had it out for us, man. These boss fights range from entirely stealth-dependent to full on direct combat with the fire extinguisher, but all of them were at least decently well-made.
Occasionally you’ll come across an electrical puzzle mini-game that is reminiscent of Bioshock‘s hacking mini-game, but they don’t offer much challenge. Outside of that, the puzzles are entirely environmental – move this ladder to this vent while freezing the electrified water so you can climb to the ceiling and use your flashlight to break the barrier that leads to the key, etc. We didn’t have too much trouble progressing; most of the true obstacles were just getting lost. These environments are really quite large, and without the handy map it’d be very easy to get lost. As it is, I think the environments are well-designed and navigable enough.
The story is by far the weakest part of GYLT, and it’s not because the writing is bad. It’s perfectly fine, good enough even. The themes of the game are so basic, however, they feel aimed at first graders, while the rest of GYLT is clearly not, as some of it is still scary enough to make 30-year-old me shriek embarrassingly loudly. The story basically centers around the idea that bullying is bad, and that if you watch someone get bullied and do nothing to help you’re also at fault. Which, sure, may be something someone needed to tell me in 6th grade, but in the scope of a horror game, it’s pretty banal.
While the environments are absolutely gorgeous, some of the best I’ve ever seen from an indie game, I don’t think they do enough work in the vein of environmental theming. I might be setting the bar too high, because the closest games I have played to GYLT are the masterful Little Nightmares games, which do environmental theming better than maybe any other titles. While the world certainly communicates despair and sadness, it’s so over-the-top that there are phrases like “YOU DESERVE TO BE BULLIED” and “YOU ARE WORTHLESS” scrawled in blood on the walls. We assumed that this might be because the whole thing was happening inside the mind of a seven-year-old girl, which would make such direct statements make sense, but that turned out not to be the case. As such, it just comes off as a juvenile attempt at a juvenile theme.
While traversing this terrible place, you’ll find red rocks that seem to be from a mine that existed here long ago. You’ll also find about a dozen humans petrified in stone next to a journal entry hidden around the world, and using the red rocks you can send them to their final resting place. We found eight by exploring naturally, but if you want to get the true ending you’ll need to hunt down at least 10 during the game. The two “Bad Endings” that can play out are both pretty awful, while the “Good Ending” is the only one that’s narratively satisfying, so if you don’t want to feel like you wasted a lot of time you might want to hunt down those rock friends.
I also want to commend GYLT for being one of the smoothest PC ports I’ve ever seen at launch. Both controllers and MKB controls are well configured, there are dozens of graphical settings you can adjust for your setup, and I did not experience a single glitch, bug, or frame stutter the entire game. My PC has an RTX 2060 Super CPU and Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, and it ran GYLT at 1440p 60 FPS on ultra settings beautifully. Most AAA games don’t look this good and certainly don’t run this well at launch.
GYLT does a number of things very well, and even reminds me of masterpieces like Little Nightmares and INSIDE when it is at its best. The music is simultaneously gripping and haunting, the controlled atmosphere is intense, the 3D environments are dreadfully beautiful, and the few monsters that inhabit this world are either terribly interesting or just flat out scary. The stealth is fairly fun, although the enemy AI detection could use some tweaking, and the environmental puzzles are just challenging enough to be entertaining. I don’t know that there is one singular thing that GYLT does better than any other game, but outside of the poor story and theme exploration, it does everything else at least very well. Playing alongside a good friend so I didn’t get too scared resulted in a wonderful few nights, and if any of what I’ve said here sounds appealing, I heartily recommend GYLT.
Nirav played GYLT on PC with a review code.
