Lag Kills Preview

You're standing at the front door, trying to pry the boards off with a crowbar. A minigame kicks in: you need to hit the spacebar at the right moment. I, the author of these lines, pressed too fast, and the crowbar hit the floor with a clatter. The noise caught the attention of the homeowner — he comes rushing downstairs.

According to the story, we came here to rob the place. James, the protagonist, has a wife in hospital after a drunk driver hit her, and he needs money for her surgery. An old friend, Lee, suggested breaking into what was supposed to be an empty cottage. Except it's not empty. There's a man up there somewhere, the walls are hung with terrifying masks, and he moves fast when he spots someone.

What follows is a battle with bugs. In doorways, the character periodically gets snagged on thin air. I tried to jump over a stepladder lying on the floor and got completely stuck. But the worst of it involved Lee. Your partner dies almost immediately: first you stumble on his bloody handprints on the walls, then you watch him get stabbed right in front of you. At one point I literally got stuck inside his corpse. You thrash around unable to move, while the maniac is already stomping around somewhere nearby. I had to open the menu and reload a checkpoint — because earlier I'd gotten equally hard-stuck in a corner next to a cat litter box. Speaking of which, we have a selection of the most brutal and bloody games — well worth a look.

The flashlight turns on by pressing F, and scrolling the mouse wheel lets you switch between a focused beam or a diffuse spread of light that floods the area around you. That said, it glitches out periodically and stops switching modes. There's also a local cat, which is incredibly annoying. The furry creature reacts to noise and acts as a walking alarm system. I had to trudge to the kitchen, find cat food, and fill the bowl so the animal wouldn't give me away to the homeowner.

When the homeowner comes running after you (the cat ratted me out anyway!), you can either jump straight into the garbage chute — which drops you into the basement — or climb into a vent. The guy won't follow you in there, and a script simply resets his aggression so he wanders off. You can also squeeze under a bed, or slam the piano keys as hard as you can to create a distraction. And while we're at it, check out the TOP 15 psychological horror games.

To get out of the house you need to grab $3,000 worth of stuff, but as far as I can tell the level currently has at most $1,600 worth of loot scattered around. You can steal pretty much anything you see. Though somehow a drill goes for forty dollars, and an ashtray for sixty. But a laptop nets you five hundred bucks in one go. For fans of quiet, sneaky approaches, we recommend the TOP 35 best stealth games on PC and consoles.

The early alpha is built on Unreal Engine 5. Surprisingly, the FPS counter in the corner stays stable — nothing chugs. Medkits just lie in desk drawers or on the floor, and healing is instantaneous — no animation, no health bar.

When you're prying the boards off the front door for what feels like the hundredth time, you think you're finally about to sprint outside. But you don't make it — the maniac catches up. The screen fades to black. The playtest is over.

As you've gathered, the game is extremely rough and buggy at this point, with very little content to speak of. We'll see whether DERANGED GAMES can turn this demo into a full release by the fourth quarter, when it's currently slated to launch. But if you want something already polished to give you a scare, here's our TOP 45: Best Horror Games of All Time.