Note: HellSign is still in early access so we may come back and update both the text of the review and the score at a later date.

The floorboards creak… You swivel your flashlight across the room and your EMF meter spikes off the charts… A soft whisper moans throughout the house as something scuttles eerily away into the shadows at the edge of your light.

HellSign, a game of paranormal investigations, places you in the shoes of a supernatural investigator. It’s your job to look into all the nasties that go bump in the night, piecing together clues that point to exactly what’s going on in the area, fending off minor spirits and creatures as you do so, and hopefully - with a lot of careful preparation, ammunition and a modicum of skill - vanquish whatever big supernatural baddie is present.

At least, this is what HellSign is supposed to be and, when it works, it is indeed deeply atmospheric, creepy, clever, and original. When it stumbles, however, it’s just repetitive, crass, and frustrating.
Thankfully, HellSign is still in early access! So with a little bit of careful tweaking, the studio can polish out all these rough edges. I’m getting ahead of myself however, let us paint you a picture of paranormal horror, so you can see what I mean.

First we need a character of course... so meet RICK DANGER!

Currently there are three types of missions available to the player: Scouting, Sweeping, and Hunting. Unsurprisingly, "scouting" is where you investigate a haunted area, using a handy assortment of nifty investigative gadgets like UV lights, EMF scanners, and parabolic microphones to track down and document evidence of hauntings. Once you’ve located enough clues, you then use your cryptozoologists book to deduce what sort of creatures are lurking within. These missions pay the least, but are also the safest.


You don't want to know some of the things you can find with a blacklight...

Next, you can play “sweeping" missions, which discard all of that innovative investigation nonsense and feature you moving through an area, cleaning it of the unholy enemies who have moved in. These missions are a bit riskier, mostly, because of the way the shooting controls work.

Finally, the creep of the week headline show, the “hunting" missions are the cream on top of the cake. They generally take place within an active haunting, full of horrible creatures and a boss-level foe that must both be uncovered and dealt with.


Missions are picked using a handy map!

It’s these hunting missions where the game really shines. Not only do they weave in a fantastic narrative, but they’re lethally dangerous for an unprepared hunter, requiring you to really make use of all the extra bits and pieces you can purchase as you go along. As you uncover clues, you’ll learn more about your foes and how to foil the beastie. So, for example, you may discover a weakness to UV lights, so you can set them up to weaken it; or perhaps the age old silver bullets are what you require? Maybe you should just be blowing everything up with explosives and calling it a day? Regardless of your approach, the atmosphere remains dark, tense, and creepy.

To take on the enjoyable hunting missions, you need to be very well-equipped and prepared.

Unfortunately, this is where the repetitive grind comes in. To take on the enjoyable hunting missions, you need to be very well-equipped and prepared. To do that, you need a lot of money and experience, and this means doing the scouting and sweeping missions over and over and over again. Once again, the game is still in early access and we’ve been promised many more varied and different missions in the future. But as it stands, there’s a lot of tedium.

Now don’t get me wrong, the first time you run through these zones, the dark, oppressive “haunted” atmosphere, coupled with the creepy low lighting means that every time a poltergeists tries to murder you by flinging furniture at your face, or having thrice damned giant spiders burst out of the ground, you'll jump out of your skin. But, eventually, like some sort of grizzled war vet, you just get used to it, and skulking about a corpse-strewn manor while scanning blood trails with a UV light becomes part of the everyday grind.
Unless a ghoul shows up… then you run… always run from the ghouls… you are never prepared, just get to your van and flee.


Spiders.... *Shudder* Why does it always have to be spiders...

Next up, we have the overarching storyline and probably the part of the game that needs the most polish. The game uses “comic book” style storytelling cutscenes every now and then to advance the games plot. For the most part, those are really cool. However, the in-game dialogue.... good grief, the writing is terrible. All the character dialogue feels like it was written by an intelligent algorithm trying to pass as an edgy human.

...pretty much every character you meet will swear like a sailor - almost as if they’re in primary school and just learnt the curse words and are trying to constantly use them in an attempt to impress you...

This can be seen in the exchange with the very first character you meet during the tutorial investigation, who referred me in a rather crass manner that I won’t even deign to type here, least I have to wash my hands in bleach afterwards. Then, while I was investigating a spooky house for signs of a haunting, I’d occasionally pop outside as part of the tutorial, and find him discussing sex, with a pair of twins of course, with another NPC. Such crass language is exceptionally common - pretty much every character you meet will swear like a sailor - almost as if they’re in primary school and just learnt the curse words and are trying to constantly use them in an attempt to impress you, or demonstrate how “adult” they are. If that wasn’t bad enough, the dialogue is riddled with meme references, and my character once got the dialogue option of a “Pokerface level over 9000”, which absolutely murders any sense of atmosphere or tension.


Writing Gold

Of course, you might think I’m making this out to be a bigger deal than it is, and heck, to some extent you might be right. I’m looking at it from the point of view of someone who writes for your pleasure, after all, and have always been a strong proponent of the belief that if you are going to swear, you better well mean it, otherwise it loses its potency. But monster-of-the-week shows and games like this tend to live or die on its internal mythology and how it connects its disparate episodes via likable characters. While HellSign's devs might be going for “gritty”, it comes across as absurdly out-of-place and atmosphere-breaking.

Final Thoughts

Still... there’s something about the atmosphere and charm of the game outside of the dialogue that still compelled me to finish the early access content. I’ve scoured endless houses for ghost recordings, shot enough cat-sized spiders to make any arachnophobe happy, and hunted some scary spooks right out of their haunting spots.

But for now, I think I’ll wait for content updates. I’ve had my fill of spooky houses for the time being, and until there are more threats, more locations, a better script, and better sense of progression. I think HellSign has the potential to be a really entertaining action-RPG that’ll sate your desire to be one of the Winchester brothers, or perhaps even Buffy. Until then, don’t expect to get more than a few hours of entertainment out of it at this moment, and pray the dialogue gets rewritten.