The Park

The Park is far from perfect but an interesting experiment that doesn't rely on cheap scare jumps to bet on a different and intimate kind of fear.

The Park may be very short, but it certainly leaves an impact. Taking a trip to Atlantic Island Park will reward horror fans with an unsettling tale of emotional trauma adorned with a number of well-orchestrated frights. As the game itself so ominously suggests, you should turn off the lights, plug in some headphones, and enjoy the ride.

Though a little unfocused, The Park manages to deliver a surprisingly personal and powerful story. Scary at times, the real horror comes not from monsters or figments of the imagination, but from that which strikes much closer to home.

While it may be short and lack replayability, Funcom have delivered a well-crafted and finely tuned psychological experience with The Park. The exceptional audio design helps to build a chilling and tense ambiance that will delight fans of The Secret World, while even newcomers can enjoy the chilling tale of one mother’s search for her son. A true psychological thriller that you'll want to play with the headphones on and the lights off.

The Park offers a solid, genuinely unnerving psychological horror experience, akin to watching a well crafted thriller. Whilst it does not break new ground narratively, it will please genre fans.

The Park runs on standard-but-efficient horror fuel: whispering sounds and child’s cries, all-enveloping darkness and creaking of abandoned yet living park rides. Hansel and Gretel’s story, intermixed with deeply personal horrors of maternity. [Issue#204, p.85]

This game is impossible to play without thinking, specifically, of the Australian horror film The Babadook.

While the first half of The Park tends to lean a bit too hard into the horror tropes of a spooky carnival, the final act does a really great job of developing a character with the pathos that comes from being a mother who’s having a tough time dealing with the impossible stress that comes from being a parent. Sure, it’s some of the same ground that Silent Hill games have covered in the past, but that doesn’t diminish its effectiveness.

Despite its lacking final moments, The Park makes the experience of searching a haunting, abandoned amusement park feel genuinely tense. This, rather than a specific plot point, is what sticks with you after you turn off the game and return to your normal, less disturbing reality.

Despite how [The Park’s] conclusion stands out as both horrifying and emotionally resonant, the plot suffers in a lead-up that can feel a bit aimless.

The Park is an interesting attempt to offer a spin-off experience for those who love The Secret World and to deliver some Halloween appropriate content for gamers who are interested in psychological horror.

The Park is more unnerving that outright scary, though there are a few attempts at jump scares scattered throughout the game.

If you like "walking simulators", The Park pulls out an interesting horror-based adventure. The story is a little bit weak, but the overall experience feels worth it in the end. Still, it's very short and a little bit pricey.

Norwegian horror walker drowns in overused clichés but has some really scary moments. [13/2015, p.57]

It’s a low cost horror game that gives you a decent enough storyline to justify the price tag. It’s also a short game though, and not a memorable one. Get it only if you truly love this kind of product.

The silver lining of The Park's poor showing is that it could lead Funcom to try harder should it attempt subsequent single-player adventures. In the meantime however, The Park is one attraction you should definitely skip out on.

An interesting trip into a world of psychological horror. But it definitely lacks uniqueness as it starts to follow the path of Dear Esther and eventually tries to emulate Silent Hills.

Even though it has some interesting ideas, you’ll be mostly a passive observer on this one time only ride.

The atmosphere is built beautifully created and the story is interesting, despite being somewhat predictable, as well as being deep if you choose to find the notes. The aesthetics are faultless and the shortage of cheap jump scares is good to see. However, I’m only going to give The Park a [60] due to its pricing and predictable plot.

The Park has solid atmosphere and pretty good scares, but it also has an unremarkable heroine and an inconsequential plot. It might be a decent curiosity if you’re looking purely for the video game equivalent of a haunted house, but its high price and short length make it difficult to recommend.

It really does try something different, even if you can feel the core themes sneaking up on you a mile away.

Funcom’s return to single-player games feels more like a proof of concept than an actual game. Walking simulators are fine, but they have to make up in story and atmosphere what they lack in terms of gameplay and player interaction. The Park doesn’t achieve that. It’s dull, the scares are cheap and the characters lifeless.

The Park feels like a typical soulless tie-in game, only it promotes a MMORPG instead of a summer movie.