Reanimal Review – Macabre Merit

Reviewed on:
PlayStation 5

Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC

Publisher:
THQ Nordic

Developer:
Tarsier Studios

Rating:
Mature

Reanimal is an adventure game: you press forward, avoid untimely deaths, collect keys, and work with your partner to escape. But Reanimal is also a punctual game about the cost of war, and the children, always innocent, whose lives will forever be marred by the actions of adults – endlessly greedy, cruel, and disgusting. Developer Tarsier Studios has crafted its best gameplay yet, with cinematic cinematography, macabre puzzles, and a dynamic use of mechanical and engaging verbs. Its co-op design, however, is lacking, making little use of playing with someone beside you or in your headset. Playing with the AI instead solidifies that Reanimal is best played alone, soaking in the bloodshed Tarsier asks you to endure.

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As the name implies, animals play a significant role throughout the five-hour duration of Reanimal – they are metaphors for what the worst of humanity can become when their fangs come out, and the twisted and bloodthirsty creatures that will pursue you endlessly in this hell. Animal lovers beware: I bludgeoned raucous seagulls to death with a crowbar, listened to pigs squeal until they couldn’t anymore in a barn lit ablaze, and fired missiles at hulking horses, amongst other things. It was graphic and gruesome, but it was the only way to save the protagonist’s friends, and so I trudged on. This game is not kind, but it is touching in an admittedly sick way, revelatory of the struggles of children whose streets have become trenches and how far they must go to reclaim the innocence they deserve.

Your enjoyment with Reanimal as a game will depend on how far you’re willing to follow these kids through hell to rescue that innocence.

Controlling the Boy with an AI companion controlling the Girl, his sister, reduces the dissonance that otherwise appears when laughing,yelling, and thinking out loud with someone on the couch next to you, playing as the Girl (and no, you don’t get to choose who plays as who). This somber journey is best played in silence, and the lack of smart co-op mechanics proves that point. As I searched for keys to unlock doors while hiding from elongated men, stretched and deformed to an almost unrecognizable state, I forgot the Girl was with me, save for her occasional grunts. While hiding from that same man, now ironing the cold and gray skin of the dead spilling out of every nearby apartment building, I never worried about whether the Girl was sneaking successfully to the next room over. In co-op, though, the communication between me and the person I played with shattered the tension, piercing an atmosphere crucial to the formula.

A few strong moments do counter my feelings on the co-op. I enjoyed playing together for miniature combat arenas and boss fights that amp up the stakes and drama that the dreary, slow, and methodical puzzles keep at bay. The same goes for chase scenes, reminiscent of ‘90s platformers where I ran toward the screen, jumping over boxes and sliding under planks while sprinting away from something I can only describe as a perverse cross between a man and a lamb.

Though I love this specific style of adventure game, its formula has waned in recent years as it felt like developers have struggled to introduce new terms to the diegetic vocabulary of the genre’s mechanics – I can only jump over gaps, open up trap doors that require two sets of hands, and solve simple environmental puzzles for so long. Tarsier is aware of this, adding a variety of verbs like shoot, beat and bludgeon, throttle, aim, and drive to the adventure lexicon, and Reanimal is the most arresting game yet of this ilk in some time.

Its audio design matches the gameplay in stride, but the same can’t be said for its visuals – though horrendously gorgeous (and it runs perfectly), the various settings are bleak and drab. Fitting of the narrative, yes, but my eyes had little to feast on in an undisclosed apartment building, a sandy overrun highway, and a wartorn metropolis. The monotony of Reanimal’s grays does, however, allow explosions of color to shine with otherworldly terror and mystique.

Reanimal is a simple game with a challenging subject matter. Those looking for a fun co-op experience should look elsewhere, as it is neither great as a shared experience nor fun. But it is thought-provoking and stimulating, and if you can stomach combat suicide, animal harm, and more – all proxies for the effects of war on the people who wage it and the victims of that destruction – Tarsier has created something worth wrestling with.