The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication Review: Shaky Multiple Plot Horror (PS5)

You don’t expect a student film at a university to turn into a nightmare. But that’s exactly what happens in The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication. An intrepid reporter and three students are caught up in an unexpected haunting at their local university. Without any reliable way out, they must navigate the horrors before them. Will they survive or are they too late to escape their inevitable fate?

The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication does a good job at presenting the horror. You must actively flee and hide, making use of your environment to solve puzzles to escape. The game can also assist you to make it easier to finish the game. Unfortunately the game is ambitious with its stories and doesn’t relate them all properly. It’s also hard to understand if you aren’t familiar with Taiwanese culture. The strengths are still greater than the flaws to deliver a decent horror game.

The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication is available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch for USD 24.99.

The cast is fully ready to film a movie, but not be in a horror setting.

Story – The University is Scary

The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication follows the story of four individuals who happen to be at Wen Hua University. One is an intrepid reporter following up on a missing persons case. The other three are university students creating a short film. They all get caught up in the university’s ghostly past and must do their best to survive. Unfortunately, the supernatural forces aren’t keen on leaving any survivors.

The story takes place in Taiwan and draws from the local culture. You don’t need to play the first game to understand what’s happening here. While the horror is the most important part, you can see the cultural references steeped in each storyline. It’s a great way to display the culture but it can be confusing if you aren’t familiar with it. Fortunately, it’s not dominant enough that you can’t figure out the main plot.

It’s easy to miss a religious relic’s value if you aren’t familiar with it.

What’s special about the story is that there are multiple subplots running at the same time. It’s clear that the supernatural occurrences are not limited to one event. All these stories are related to each other and move the plot forward in some way. This draws your interest because you want to know how they tie together. Unfortunately, this strength is also the game’s greatest weakness.

Plotlines – Too Many of Them

Unlike Massacre at the Mirage that focuses on a single storyline, The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication splits your time across each story. This lets you build a foundation and see the different stories come together. Every story has a grisly beginning but makes you wonder what happened, driving you to find out more. As you explore and fight through the scares, you learn how the stories come together. The game’s execution is lacking in that regard.

There’s a lot going on and not all questions get an answer.

First, the stories still have gaps that are never fully explained. It does tie together but you do find yourself with some unanswered questions when everything is over. You wonder why the story played out the way it did, or how some characters come to certain revelations. It’s possible to infer what happened but this does feel like something that could use more exposition. The result is a story that, while coming together for the most part, still feels incomplete by the game’s end.

Gameplay – Hide & Seek with Puzzles

Most of the game is spent following a linear path while solving puzzles, similar to Haunted Bloodlines. However, there are sections where you hide from enemies as well. Unlike other survival horror games, you do have a lantern that protects you from one fatal attack. While the lantern recharges, you can’t “defeat” your pursuer that way. You must find the exit and solve puzzles to escape your pursuer.

Even if you can’t see your pursuer, that doesn’t mean they lost you.

Solving puzzles while running from a pursuer sounds difficult but the game makes things easy. There are accessibility options that help make escape easier by showing you how your pursuer reacts. You also retain some progress after you die, allowing you to eventually succeed if you fail too often. This helps put the focus on the story instead of hopelessly struggling to escape your pursuer.

The only downside is that some puzzles don’t have a clear objective or you must find hints on your own. This goes back to the cultural aspect of the game; you do need to know what to look out for. While the game tries its best, sometimes you can’t get by without knowing some cultural references. This results in frequent deaths until you figure out just what the game is referring to. That introduces unnecessary frustration and makes the game less appealing.

Run from the ballerina but not while they can see you.

Audio & Visual – Confusion in Darkness

Visually, the university and the supernatural areas are stunning. Great attention to detail is seen throughout the designs, even down to the architectural blueprints. It lends to the realism of the location even if you have never been to Taiwan before. This adds to the horror because even seemingly normal locations turn into haunted areas before your eyes. You don’t trust what you see as anything could jump out at you.

There isn’t much music which puts most of the emphasis on the sounds made by people. Even the pursuers are appropriately creepy, making sounds that you would expect. That makes every jump scare carry more impact because it’s nearly silent otherwise. There is some music but that’s because something isn’t right, which lends to the eerie feeling. The only downside is the voice acting.

The voice acting is great but the English voice acting loses some of the emotional impact. While Chinese voice acting might be unusual for some, the actual emotion and language is properly conveyed. Richie is the best example; his gratuitous use of English seems odd but is part of his character. Without hearing it yourself, it comes off as bravado instead of overcompensation.

The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by Pcube.