Thankfully, I’m happy to put that worry to rest-the developers used each emotion very smartly in order to keep them consistently fresh. In my preview of Unholy based on last month’s demo build, I said that the emotion mechanic had a lot of promise but that I was worried that the small number of them could lead to a lack of variety. Shock can power or destroy electrical machines and circuits, sadness creates a bubble which temporarily hides you from enemies while you’re inside it, anger can trigger landmines or destroy environmental objects, and desire creates a decoy that temporarily distracts any enemies in range. Unholy ’s stealth mainly centers around your slingshot, which can be loaded with charges containing the power of one of four emotions, each of which can be used to different effect.
The Eternal City sections take up the bulk of the runtime and contain the most engaging action, so I’d call stealth the headlining experience. The majority of the game is split between two worlds: the In-Between, a supernatural, twisted version of a Soviet bloc apartment building, where the focus is mostly on exploration and puzzle-solving, and the Eternal City, a plague-ridden alternate dimension ruled over by a cult called the Eternal Spring, which is more stealth-based. It’s not the flashiest, most complex, or most innovative game in the world, but it implements its mechanics well and doesn’t overstay its welcome, leading to an experience that, while simple, keeps itself fresh and satisfying for most of its runtime. So allow me to introduce it with those strengths in mind: Unholy is a stealth-adventure game where you use the powers of different emotions to creep your way through various creative scenarios.
Which, to be clear, is a good thing, not just because it isn’t very scary (only a small handful of times did I find myself spooked, and even then some of those were cheap jump scares), but because it allows the true strengths of the game to shine for all they’re worth. Sure, it shares many of the trappings of horror-creepy settings, monster chases, a general sense of feeling underpowered-but the horror elements aren’t really the main draw of the experience, in my opinion. Unholy, the latest release from Warsaw-based developer Duality Games, has been marketed primarily as a “psychological horror game,” but having played it, I have to respectfully disagree with that assessment.
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