How far would you go for your art? That is a question that has plagued me for my entire life, and I still feel no closer to an answer now than I did when I first began my writing journey. There are so many times when I feel like giving up and doing something else with my life. However, there is a drive that pushes us all forward, and it’s up to us to decide when exactly our breaking point is. It isn’t always easy, but somehow, Dead Take feels compelled to tackle that question while examining the darker side of Hollywood.
Dead Take is an interesting look at a genre that is all too familiar in the indie horror scene: a walking simulator. However, I prefer to call this a true horror title, which forces you to explore an area without being able to fight back. I was surprised at this because developer Surgent Studios has never developed a horror game before. In fact, their previous game was Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, a side-scrolling action game about a shaman looking for his father’s spirit, so to say that this is a massive genre shift would be an understatement.
My interest was further piqued when the first trailer revealed the use of live footage and the ability to splice these together to make new clips. However, there was an air of trepidation that I couldn’t quite shake away. Even as I started Dead Take and took my first steps into this world of debauchery and sacrifice, there was a nagging feeling that I couldn’t quite shake. But I knew that I needed to continue on this adventure and see if this game could finally give me the answer I was seeking all along.
Take Your Shot
Dead Take follows Chase Lowry, an actor already past his prime, and he is constantly burning through his contacts in his quest for that next big part. However, tonight is different, because tonight he is searching for his friend Vinny Monroe, fellow actor and lead for the next big project from legendary film director Duke Cain. It becomes clear as soon as Chase steps into the mansion that something is watching and judging his every action, but he continues on in search of his friend. However, soon he will discover just how far Vinny was willing to go for the part, and must ask himself a single question. What will he sever for his own art?
I’ll be clear: the fact that Dead Take relies heavily on full-motion videos for story and casts big-name actors in almost every part had me extremely worried. After all, there are many titles from previous generations that used this technology, but failed to deliver anything substantial to show for the extravagant use of actors. However, I’m glad to say that the actors don’t actively take anything away from the experience, and in a few cases, add something special that wouldn’t have been possible without the use of film. The surprising part is that for my six hours roaming through Cain’s mansion, only a single hour of that time was spent watching these clips.
This might sound contradictory, but the sparing use of these clips makes them feel special. Each time I found a new thumb drive that held the next clip, I would rush back to the projector room and see what I would unlock next. I’ll admit that this is a very simple gameplay loop, but one that is immediately effective once you begin truly exploring this mansion. The mansion is huge, and has many wide open spaces that the silence throughout the mansion feels deafening. There were so many points that I would feel claustrophobic, despite never being enclosed in a tight space, and I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint why that was. I felt crushed under the weight of the rooms around me, and the subtle clues of what the mansion was used for only added to this feeling. I loved every second of it, as I freaked myself out and slowly pushed through each room.
That is what Dead Take excels at: taking that feeling of being watched and crushed under that gaze, and letting you take that feeling to its natural conclusion, which helps pad out the rather sparse narrative. However, that doesn’t mean that the story is nonsensical or slow, but rather it uses each clip and voice mail as a way to reward you for braving the mansion. In all honesty, at many points it felt like I was watching an interactive movie, and my only interaction was to find the next clip to keep the pace going. This will be a heavy drawback for most, and at times was even tedious for me to run around the mansion looking for the next progression point. However, this didn’t stop me from enjoying the story segments as they came, and helped make it feel rewarding when I queued the next clip to watch.
Show Me Something Real
Watching clips isn’t the only way you will interact within the mansion. In fact, Duke Cain was an eccentric who built a mansion that would rival even the Spencer Estate from the Resident Evil series, and some of the puzzles can get just as obtuse. However, I would argue that, at times, the Spencer Estate made more sense than the mansion in Dead Take, as a huge portion of your time will be spent looking for each puzzle piece. This is so frustrating because the puzzles themselves are simple affairs, usually requiring you to put an item in the right hole. The trick is to figure out where the item is placed to start with, and this can be a fight in its own right.
The wide open spaces and a lack of light sources make each room a chore to explore, and this is only compounded by the fact that the item is placed in a corner that you just hadn’t checked, or the light perfectly hid it from view. In the end, you will spend all your time while playing Dead Take looking for an item that’s not hidden behind a puzzle, but just sitting around in a large dark room waiting for you to pick it up. It makes you feel like you weren’t paying enough attention. All the time spent building the atmosphere gets demolished when your sigh of relief comes not from reaching a safe point, but from finally finding that item to put the square peg in the square hole.
This is extremely disappointing, as since the puzzles are so simple, you will figure out the solution long before you have all the missing pieces. That led to my frustration at times, along with a general lack of knowing what I should do next, which would make you want to put down the game. Nothing made me want to put this game down more than the Splaice, pronounced “splice”, AI editing software that acts as a puzzle to unlock more clips by combining those already in your possession. If most of the puzzles are too simple, then Splaice is the exact opposite, requiring you to fumble around with splicing together clips before you happen to come across the right combination.
Dead Take does a poor job of signaling when you should start heading back to the projector room, which often leaves you wandering. Yes, there are times when Duke will message you about one of the other actors and tell you to go to the projector room. However, so many times I would get there and be unsure what clips to combine, or have already combined said clips, so his hints were already useless. This doesn’t become a real problem until the last hour of the game, when you finally have all the base clips in your possession. At that point, you must figure out which clips to combine without any hints to guide you toward the correct solution and trigger the ending sequence.
Ideally, the game would provide more specific guidance to steer you toward the correct clips. Instead, you must experiment with each combination, hoping that you will be presented with a new clip for your efforts, and frequently, I would sigh when I finally happened across the correct clips. It’s such an interesting concept that it’s disappointing to see it feel more like an obstacle to wrestle with than the narrative device it could have been. While each combination makes sense once you discover it, the process could be communicated far more clearly. However, as it is now, all you are left with is a vague gameplay mechanic that feels unintuitive and frustrating to work with at best. If you can get past this, then you will love your time with Dead Take, but if you find this a problem, then stay as far away as you can. After all, this is the main mechanic that you will have to interact with in order to complete the game.
Sever Your Ties
Dead Take is an ambitious title that uses the concept of movies and film to deliver a story that feels unique to itself, and enhances a compelling feeling that the mansion exploits to deliver scares. However, overly simplistic puzzles and poorly communicated mandatory Splaice puzzles can make your time in the mansion stretch on for longer than it should. Although, if you can get past all of these issues, then I am sure that you are in for a good time that even now I can’t stop thinking about.
Dead Take is far from being a perfect game, but these flaws only accentuate the package that is already here. I fell in love with the title from a feeling of getting crushed by a mansion that was too huge and lavish for most humans. This atmosphere draws you into the mansion and the mystery surrounding Vinny and Duke, and that carries through the entire experience of the game. So go ahead, take your shot, and see how much you are willing to sacrifice for your art. I’m sure you will walk away with an experience that you can’t soon forget.
Disclaimer: Pocketpair Publishing provided a PC (Steam) copy of Dead Take for review purposes.
