Pneumata Review: The Horror Letdown (PC)

When your memories are unreliable and horrors lurk around every corner, you pick up a gun and investigate. Traveling through an abandoned town while battling horrifying enemies takes a toll on anyone’s sanity. But it might be the only way to find out what happened to your loved one. Despite your bold adventure rattling the vestiges of your sanity, you venture onward to find the truth. Unfortunately, the truth isn’t always what we want it to be.

Pneumata crafts a horror environment like no other, making you dread every step you take. Combat sticks with the theme as you use weapons and the environment to fight, though you sometimes hide from enemies. Unfortunately, Pneumata is a frustrating game to play and the horror comes from the systems. As exciting as the prospect of a thrilling survival horror may be, it’s difficult to continue playing for the experience.

Pneumata is available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC for USD 34.99.

The house is scary to explore. The game, not so much.

Story – The Possibility of a Survivor

You step into the shoes of a man traumatized by the loss of his partner. Slowly losing the will to live, he lets his living conditions deteriorate. One day, he receives a package containing a VHS tape from an unknown person. The tape contains footage of the man searching for his partner at a location he’s never been to. Seeing that this is his only chance of finding his partner, he drives to the location unaware of the horrors within.

The story is intriguing and does make you want to know what happens. There are other subplots interwoven throughout the story but solving the mystery is key. However, you must resolve other subplots before you proceed, dragging out the length. Fortunately, it’s unlikely that you experience any deviation since you never forget why you are there. The game’s main difficulty isn’t the story, but getting over the frustrating gameplay.

The house is scary to explore. The game, not so much.

Gameplay – Reacting to Horror in First Person

Pneumata’s gameplay is similar to that of Hellbreach: Vegas as you explore in the first-person. You walk through the town and investigate, solving puzzles while managing limited resources. Despite the large number of enemies, it’s not a good idea to shoot everything that moves. Looking around and using the environment to your advantage is key. Sometimes, running away is the answer.

The enemies in Pneumata look threatening and are dangerous. Healing is also difficult but not hard once you manage your resources. Combining items not only helps you save inventory space, but also gives you new items to work with. Unfortunately, the game runs into some problems with item combinations. It’s possible that you have the right ingredients but the game won’t let you combine anything.

Encountering this enemy is the least of your worries.

While Pneumata has the standard survival horror gameplay, that’s not the most frightening thing. The most frightening aspect is how inconsistent your overall gameplay can be. There’s little guidance, your inventory doesn’t always work, and save files don’t always work properly. Not only does this impede gameplay, it takes away from the horror experience that’s been crafted by the environment.

Bugs – Scarier Than the Enemies

Normally a save file works by recording your progress at a specific instance. But in Pneumata, this sometimes takes the form of recording directly from your autosave. That means your save files are often useless since you can’t control when your autosave kicks in. Even if you can rely on your autosave, that makes the save function pointless because you can’t rely on it. It’s a problem that’s stayed since the release and hasn’t changed.

Your save file is important, pity it doesn’t work properly.

Other instances like losing the ability to combine items or losing navigation make it difficult to keep playing. It’s not the way the game intended but you can’t run around with alcohol and cloth hoping you never get hurt. The game’s lack of generosity concerning supplies will get you in trouble unless you are an expert. It’s also unclear where to go; you only realise some paths are marked by yellow. Others involve you hoping you backtracked properly.

It’s flaws like this that bring down the overall experience and it’s a shame. While not gamebreaking, it does feel like a game of Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit. Bugs take away from the experience and turn genuine horror into ample frustration. You should be afraid of what’s around the corner, not afraid of whether your save file is reliable. That ruins the overall horror environment and makes you less inclined to continue.

You have no idea why this is there or what it even does.

Audio & Visual – Some of the Best

Pneumata’s horror atmosphere is amazing, which is why it is unfortunate that the gameplay experience isn’t great. Walking through dark areas is genuinely concerning and makes you feel like anything will jump out. The noise levels are low and the lights are dim. Dark areas are plentiful and there is no shortage of enemies ready to jump out at you. You never know what’s around the corner and sometimes enemies aren’t the scariest thing you can find.

Unfortunately this is also tempered with some poor audio. While the game has improved and provided subtitles, the voice acting doesn’t sound good. This mostly comes up during story scenes as the regular noises are spot on. But it feels like any dialogue is painful to listen to while not sounding like someone who is emotionally stressed. 

Pneumata was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by Perp Games.