I share my impressions of the early access side-view sci-fi thriller Hidden Deep, the ideas and atmosphere for which the authors learned from The Thing, Alien and other cult horror films.

And that's a pretty bold statement that horror movie buffs like me will easily fall for. Without prelude, Hidden Deep sends me to a huge complex under the ocean floor, which I have to explore in search of a missing scientific team. Organic growths on the walls, and later creepy monsters, indicate that the scientists did not disappear by accident.

Strangely, the online games from the studio Friv2Online starts on day 18 (even though it says Day 1 on the mission list), with no opening, intro movie, or even cutscenes to help immerse yourself in what's going on - I'm just watching Murphy's silent soldier descend on the elevator to the ill-fated complex, and after that I immediately begin to carry out the instructions of the voice from the radio.

Looking ahead, I’ll say that neither in the second, nor in the third, nor even in the fourth mission did I see what the friv game is called a “thriller” for - at each level they give me a boring assignment, such as finding missing soldiers, starting a generator, picking up a disk with important data... And in the interval from the beginning to the end of the mission, nothing happens. The developers announced more than 20 hours of passage in the story mode already in early access, but I never saw a clear story.

Back to the gameplay - it mixes elements of side-scrolling platformer, shooter, horror and puzzle. Each level is a network of intricate caves and labyrinths with monsters, traps and difficult places.

The gameplay feature is revealed immediately - this is the "rag" control of the hero with an emphasis on physics, which you could see in Barotrauma. Every movement is not very responsive, slow and awkward.

On the one hand, it adds realism to the game and suggests that the main character is just a person. But on the other hand, how crooked and uncomfortable it is! A soldier takes out a weapon for so long that during this time monsters overtake him without haste, but the number of accidents while exploring a network of intricate caves is off scale. This is frustrating, because a limited number of attempts are allocated for the passage of tasks.

Someone will like this type of control, but for me it only causes misunderstanding - I just can’t immerse myself in the atmosphere of a horror movie. By the way, about limited attempts - I realized that, according to the authors' idea, we should manage different people of a limited team, and its members should not be neglected. But at the moment, the character is simply reborn near the place of his death in the same form, which kills this idea.

But the awkward hero is equipped with the latest technology - he has a cable, a flying droid for exploring the area, powerful explosives, a terrain scanner and other interesting gadgets. All this is really useful, and even more - the authors untie their hands and offer to independently look for the path to the goal. For example, using explosives, you can open passages, and the drone not only scans the area, but can also shock enemies, and even press a switch.

The soldier will be accompanied by engineers capable of operating drilling equipment - with its help you can also cut your way through the caves. The feature implies a cooperative passage, which will appear already with updates, but for now, in such situations, you have to switch between characters and lead them by the handle, which is not very convenient.

There are monsters, but they are not impressive. Firstly, in 4 missions I met only 3 species, and then one comes from the other. Secondly, these are not xenomorphs, and not a mimic "something", but boring flies, worms and a larger worm hanging on the ceiling. But despite their meager appearance, they hit hard even on the average difficulty level.

There are bugs, and sometimes they interfere with the passage. For example, on the fourth mission, the character begins to bleed for no reason and dies, which completely discourages the desire to go further. Sometimes it will get stuck somewhere, sometimes it will hang funny on a cable. For early access, technical flaws are forgivable, because they will mostly be patched.

But what cannot be taken away from Hidden Deep is the excellent atmosphere and design to match the old horror films. Prehistoric computers, a feeling of loneliness in the middle of a huge complex with monsters reacting to the slightest sound, a mysterious unknown ahead and total enveloping darkness...

The same boring monsters, when they attack spectacularly at unexpected moments, make you shudder. Although the locations still need to be worked on - to add, for example, the corpses of staff and interesting rooms, but now the maps consist mainly of monotonous corridors.

As a result, Hidden Deep upset me rather than pleased me - inconvenient controls, a small number of monsters, boring missions, the lack of a full-fledged plot and a strange feature in the form of limited attempts to complete a task do not inspire faith in the project. Therefore, I consider the decision to enter early access first, and I hope that the game will acquire content and become an excellent horror movie, for which it has the potential.