The MTS Endurance went missing four years ago during a voyage across the Atlantic. When the ship emerges, we’re part of the rescue team who responds to its distress signal. The mission goes wrong as we board the ship, meaning the rest of our team are unable to join us, leaving us stranded on the derelict vessel. The ship is seemingly deserted as we explore its interior, until we suddenly stumble upon what looks to be the calcified bodies of its ill-fated crew.
Aegon Games’ psychological horror game, Lazaret, immediately sets a hard impression with its fantastic sound design on board the abandoned vessel. As you move through the ship, you’ll hear various noises which will make you question whether it’s just the rocking of the boat, expanding pipes, or something else entirely. In fact, Lazaret’s sound design is the main source of its horror. There’s little to no music in the game, and this works vastly in its favor as the silence further amplifies your paranoia that you’re not truly alone.
As is typical in horror games surrounding an abandoned building or vessel such as this, the storyline of Lazaret is pieced together using notes left behind by the Endurance’s crew. They gradually explain what happened four years ago when the ship went missing and also alluding that these calcified “statues” may not be entirely immobile. And that’s not all: something else prowls the ship’s corridors, something much larger.
Once it becomes clear that there are no survivors on board the Endurance, your next objective is to release the ship’s lockdown and get out of there while you wait for the rest of your team to return. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done as the crew have sabotaged most of the ship while seeking out a safe space from the statues to prevent them from being followed.
That’s right, I said “followed”. Not all of these calcified statues are frozen still, some are just pretending to be. From the notes left behind by the crew, you find out that if you whistle, the ones that are still mobile will often whistle back if they’re not too close to you, giving you an idea of which ones are still a threat. Unfortunately, I use the term “threat” very lightly. The mobile statues work like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who; if you turn your back on them, they will move towards you. If you get too close, they will grab you and knock you down. But that’s about it as you will get back up again immediately afterwards. There are no repercussions for being caught by the statues. In fact, they are so little of a threat that I would often just walk right up to them and let them knock me out, as they would disappear afterwards and that would stop them from creepily following me around the room while I tried to solve a puzzle.
The second threat in Lazaret is a hulking giant monster, which much reminds of of the monsters that Bloober Team feel compelled to shove into their horror walking simulators to add a bit more excitement to the mix. Your strategy with this guy is to simply run far enough away from him that he’s out of range or find a locker to hide in. But these moments are few and far between and he rarely becomes an issue when you do run into him as escaping is often fairly easy considering he’s not in much of a rush to catch up with you. The third are spider-like creatures which are really creepy, but unfortunately also not used very often to be a genuine threat.
While the majority of Lazaret’s atmosphere comes from its sound effects mixed in with the uneasy silence of a missing soundtrack, there are also plenty of other moments timed in to freak you out. Most of these consist of jump scares, which I’ve never been fond of as I believe we’ve gotten to the point now where they’re becoming outdated as a tiresome and cheap way to generate horror rather than being genuinely scary. What was scary was having statues move around while I wasn’t looking, hearing their footsteps as they switched positions. There is also an unnerving effect where they peak around corners or through doorways which really creeped me out, though this became quickly overused to the point where it also stopped being scary. In fact, even the jump scares became predictable after a while as they would almost always happen once I picked up a new key item, meaning I would brace myself each time I would do this. In fact, even with the statues moving around behind me, my favorite tactic became ‘ignorance is bliss’ where I would just simply not turn around. They can’t scare me if I can’t see them.
That being said, my playthrough of Lazaret was only four hours long, and it can be completed in just over two if you’re quicker about it than I was. So, by the point these effects stop being scary, you’re pretty much the majority of the way through the game. I think four hours is a fair length for a game such as this. It’s essentially a walking simulator, which are best when kept short so that the story has a better impact.
Despite its short run length, I did not find the story of Lazaret to be very compelling. Though it did hold mystery behind how the crew turned into calcified statues, I didn’t find the ending to be satisfying enough to tie this story up with a decent conclusion.
On top of this, Lazaret is a puzzle game but the actual puzzles are very few and far between. Most of the time, you’ll be looking for missing parts of the sabotaged sections of the ship that need to be repaired – which didn’t require much brain work as the way forward is pretty linear and I almost always knew where I needed to go next to get the next piece or unlock the next section of the level. It also became very annoying to feel as though I was making progress, only to come across yet another broken part of the ship. By this point, my character should have just found a tool box to carry around with him as well as a valve and cog – just in case.
Although Lazaret does lack a fulfilled storyline and I never felt like I was in danger due to the enemies’ passive attitudes, it is a neat horror game to fill four hours with. If you’re looking for casual, easy scares in one sitting, this isn’t a bad one to pick up.
Jess played Lazaret on PC with a review code.
This was super scary. You call it a casual game, pfff, it’s very creepy and scary