Blair Witch

 PlayStation 4
User Score
5.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 44 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 44
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 44
  3. Negative: 13 out of 44

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  1. Steyraus
    Aug 31, 2020
    2
    Boring Walking Simulator with jump scares.. Bloober team have a great marketing team and production scam going here, to make these horribly dull experiences get any sort of coverage. They take whatever is relevant to You Tubers and games journalist (Mental Health, Depression, etc etc) make a cheap nasty game loosely , very loosely based to the subject, then hope the gushy low IQs of theBoring Walking Simulator with jump scares.. Bloober team have a great marketing team and production scam going here, to make these horribly dull experiences get any sort of coverage. They take whatever is relevant to You Tubers and games journalist (Mental Health, Depression, etc etc) make a cheap nasty game loosely , very loosely based to the subject, then hope the gushy low IQs of the world do the rest.… Expand
  2. Pilou
    Jan 6, 2020
    8
    Blair Witch is a great Survival Horror as we like. The game mixes phases of exploration and horror, all complemented by elements that make us lose all notion of orientation and reality. The forest is beautifully modeled and the soundtrack immersive. A must have if you like the genre even if it is unfortunately a little too short. Especially since the game deserves an adaptation to VR!
  3. PhilipBlake
    Dec 5, 2019
    8
    Awesome atmospheric horror game for any fans of the first and the third movie of the franchise (I mean, who liked Blair Witch 2 Books of Shadows). This is only an ambiant game, in the same way as a Silent Hill but more contemplative as an horror Firewatch / Everybody Gone to the Rapture. So if you didn't liked these kind of exploration slow paced gaming and you are more in a shootingAwesome atmospheric horror game for any fans of the first and the third movie of the franchise (I mean, who liked Blair Witch 2 Books of Shadows). This is only an ambiant game, in the same way as a Silent Hill but more contemplative as an horror Firewatch / Everybody Gone to the Rapture. So if you didn't liked these kind of exploration slow paced gaming and you are more in a shooting Resident Evil mood it's probably not for you. In short if you like action games dissolve in a horror world you better have to be careful about about the game. But instead If you like atmospheric interactive horror story set in a Blair Witch world with occasional action horror sequence, that's definitely for you! Good game design, not state-of-the-art but still very effective, superb original score by Arkadiusz Reikowski that totally feet the Blair Witch universe. And the overall mechanism with the dog, the interaction and the items are more than correct. In my opinion a very nice new horror franchise from Lionsgate Games.… Expand
  4. Gyryzy
    Dec 4, 2019
    10
    Wonderful fun especially for fans of horror. The dog is great support in this game :)
  5. Sawsaq
    Mar 5, 2022
    0
    As social tensions rise in the world, horror is gaining popularity. - Rafał Basaj
  6. wesker2012
    Dec 3, 2021
    5
    Controls and gameplay mechanics were too unintuitive for me. I just couldn't get into the game at all.
  7. Jim222001
    Feb 6, 2023
    7
    Occasionally creepy and it may make you jump. More thought needed to be put into the endings though.
  8. Alex_Pilgrim008
    Mar 23, 2023
    7
    "Blair Witch" plays like a cross between "Silent Hill" and "Amnesia". Bloober Team (Layers of Fear) does a good job paying tribute to the movies. The game is only about 6 hours long, but there are four different endings. This is a slow-burn survival horror game filled with item management, exploration and puzzles. The dog that can help you is a nice touch. Overall, not great, but"Blair Witch" plays like a cross between "Silent Hill" and "Amnesia". Bloober Team (Layers of Fear) does a good job paying tribute to the movies. The game is only about 6 hours long, but there are four different endings. This is a slow-burn survival horror game filled with item management, exploration and puzzles. The dog that can help you is a nice touch. Overall, not great, but enjoyable. If you want a spooky game to play during the Halloween season, this is a decent one. I would rate it with a 7 out of 10… Expand
  9. SplitMind
    May 21, 2021
    4
    This game is a massive missed opportunity, a bit like the movie itself.

    The graphics in this game almost put me off before the game even left the prologue. Clearly the game was designed with night-time in mind, in that daylight really challenges the framerate of the game. Walking around become almost nauseating and very janky. If it wasn't for the fact that the game quickly turns to    This game is a massive missed opportunity, a bit like the movie itself.

    The graphics in this game almost put me off before the game even left the prologue. Clearly the game was designed with night-time in mind, in that daylight really challenges the framerate of the game. Walking around become almost nauseating and very janky. If it wasn't for the fact that the game quickly turns to night-time and gets much smoother then I would have given up. The graphics themselves aren't anything to write home about. You're in a forest that's as stereotypical as can be and very bland. For some reason they allow you to customise your dog at the beginning but this is almost pointless since few variations are provided and mean little in the ensuing darkness anyway.

    The gameplay is where the magic of the Blair Witch is like the Wizard of Oz being revealed as an average man behind a mysterious curtain - this game is painfully average, if not sub-par. Walking around the forest is supposed to create suspense and mystery. It actually achieves this, however this wears thin incredibly fast and changes to frustration as I literally just wandered around until serendipitously stumbling onto a clue which the dog led me on a meandering path to. This is not suspenseful - it is merely irritating and gets in the way of progress.

    Speaking of which, this also sums up the dog - a nice gimmick but ultimately just a nuisance. He doesn't quite reach The Last Guardian levels of uselessness, but he is a middle-man (dog?) delaying my progress towards completing the next objective. I can see why he was included, but anyone testing the game should have detected the potential for irritation, or maybe I'm just impatient.

    My final gripe with the gameplay are the video clues. How are we expected to know to pause a video at just the right split-second to achieve an arbitrary action? I had to look this up online and that always leaves me in a quandary between my own ignorance or bad game design. If anything this just detracts from the survival horror aspect of exploring the environment.

    The story of Blair Witch is fairly straight-forward with a search for a missing child. This soon devolves into supernatural elements which I presume are elaborated upon further into the game (or not, if the movie is anything to go by), however I did not make it far enough to find out. There are seemingly very random milestones, as I had managed to trek from the Prologue to Chapter 4 without being alerted to the intervening chapters.

    From the truncated experience I had it appeared that there was some sort of mental illness component to the story, either psychosis or PTSD. Some may find this inclusion enlightening whilst I tend to find it glamorising and condescending. Psychosis has enough associations with violence so if the game is trying to combat stigma then they aren't doing a great job.

    Overall, the game has fantastic potential and progressing from daytime to night in the forest really did feel significantly different with suspense and ambience, but this was quickly marred by the inane meandering and unnecessary puzzles. The dog is a nice gimmick but his barking became grating very quickly. This is not a game I can comfortably recommend to any but the most lascivious interests in survival horror.    … Expand
  10. gamerz4life
    Nov 9, 2020
    7
    Blair Witch, developed by Bloober Games (makers of Layers of Fear), takes place in the same universe as the movie (Blair Witch Project), a couple years after the fact. The game takes place in the Black Hills Forest of Burkittsville, Maryland like the movie. Blair Witch Project is also briefly mentioned in passing during the intro, though no knowledge of the movie is necessary to play. ThisBlair Witch, developed by Bloober Games (makers of Layers of Fear), takes place in the same universe as the movie (Blair Witch Project), a couple years after the fact. The game takes place in the Black Hills Forest of Burkittsville, Maryland like the movie. Blair Witch Project is also briefly mentioned in passing during the intro, though no knowledge of the movie is necessary to play. This is a psychological horror game, with a big emphasis on the ‘psychological’ as the gameplay relies heavily on what’s going on in Ellis’ mind rather than fighting hordes of enemies. It’s about the search and it’s all about what you can’t see in the wide open forest. The best horror is what your own mind conceives rather than what’s shown to you and this game does a very good job at that.

    The main character is Ellis, who is suffering from some sort of troubled past, and his faithful dog companion, Bullet. You start off joining the search for a missing boy; the characters are done well to a certain point. The build-up of both plot and character is great but eventually facts start getting thrown at you near the end that you had no way of knowing as they were never mentioned until then.

    Most of the gameplay relies on you searching for clues, mostly tapes for your camera, but there are also photos and notes strewn about as well. This is one of the most used gameplay mechanics, as the camera has you watching the tapes to manipulate events and objects to progress the story. Your flashlight is your main tool but as in most horror games, if you keep the brightness level where it tells you, you can barely see anything. Then there was a night-vision mode on the camera but you couldn’t past an arm’s length in front of you (unlike Outlast where you could actually see something). A positive was that neither the flashlight nor the camera required an arduous search for batteries (i.e. every other game that uses these mechanics), they acted like real batteries that could last more than 5 minutes.

    The controls for this game are pretty straightforward. There’s a radial menu for the objects you can access along with a menu for different commands you can give to Bullet. The only problem I had was that rewinding the tapes was somewhat clunky and had me attempting to get to the right part several times before it worked.

    As for your dog Bullet, he was okay to have around. But many times he was hard to keep track of when you were supposed to use him to find objects, or the trail, or even to sense enemies. And when it got dark in the woods, he was near impossible to see. The collar was supposed to glow in the dark but it didn’t really work. As for giving Bullet commands, which was also the radial wheel, it was a good idea in theory but didn’t play out super well. He was often running off on his own and I had to use the command ‘come here’ a whole lot. Though overall, it was nice to have a companion character in these creepy woods.

    For the story, there are two different endings with two smaller side endings and then a ‘secret’ ending. The two different endings are for the actual game and Ellis, one of which you’ll always get unless you read on how to get the second ending because if you mess up even one thing right at the beginning you’re getting the other ending. The two smaller endings have to do with another character and the secret ending can’t even be achieved on the 1st playthrough. This game is meant to be played 2-3 times in order to get the whole thing and I think that that really hurts it in the long run. Playing this game you’ll start to come up with theories as to what’s going on, and for the most part mine were correct but then the game kind of just ends and you’re left really confused. You will have to look up other people’s theories and what they got out of the game to compare and start to piece the whole story together.

    Overall, I think this game is worth a playthrough or maybe two if you want to get the other ending. Otherwise, it’s just a good psychological horror game that brings in some P.T. (Silent Hills) elements in the last chapter. P.S. Call the pizza guy every chance you can get a call out, his last calls are hilarious!    … Expand
  11. rickdonnie
    Jun 26, 2020
    6
    The game has great moments, hard to deny. Creepy atmosphere, dark forest, and of course the famous house. If it looks often like a walking simulator, there are many moments when you can die. No weapon here, just walking. The devs made a great job with the forest, you often feel totally lost, and it was the goal. The soundtrack is great. The dog, well, it's a cute doggy, but in the end, notThe game has great moments, hard to deny. Creepy atmosphere, dark forest, and of course the famous house. If it looks often like a walking simulator, there are many moments when you can die. No weapon here, just walking. The devs made a great job with the forest, you often feel totally lost, and it was the goal. The soundtrack is great. The dog, well, it's a cute doggy, but in the end, not really useful for the overall game, more a gimmick useful latter for the story. The last level is great, even if it lacks checkpoints. If you die at some point, you'll restart it from the start. Not my favorite kind of horror game (great atmosphere but almost no gameplay), but in its style, a good game.… Expand
  12. Wwilliams23
    Nov 4, 2020
    5
    I really wanted to like this game, being a fan of the original film. It's not terrible, just average. You're pretty much walking around the woods with your trusty dog, fending off creatures/ghosts while looking for a lost child. As far as scare factor, it's probably a 7/10. It's dark and creepy or sure, but you feel a little more safe with the dog around. You basically use the flashlightI really wanted to like this game, being a fan of the original film. It's not terrible, just average. You're pretty much walking around the woods with your trusty dog, fending off creatures/ghosts while looking for a lost child. As far as scare factor, it's probably a 7/10. It's dark and creepy or sure, but you feel a little more safe with the dog around. You basically use the flashlight as your weapon, so there isn't really any fighting. You find video tapes to watch that lead to clues too. Overall, I was expecting more. It's worth a play for horror fans for sure, but anyone else should avoid it.… Expand
  13. GretchenGrinch4
    Jan 14, 2021
    5
    i had high hopes for this game. even looked forward to it on my Christmas list. however it's highly disappointing. i've spent hours lost in the woods with no real direction which basically kills the immersion for what little story it does have, a lot of the game is based on camera puzzles that seem forced and out of place. currently being killed in the same spot over and over with , yeti had high hopes for this game. even looked forward to it on my Christmas list. however it's highly disappointing. i've spent hours lost in the woods with no real direction which basically kills the immersion for what little story it does have, a lot of the game is based on camera puzzles that seem forced and out of place. currently being killed in the same spot over and over with , yet again, no clear direction on what I'm really supposed to do. I'd recommend waiting for this to come to psnow so you can try it for free. it's more frustrating than fun, more confusion than substance. after completing the game i have a little better opinion , but sill not a huge fan. especially with the sound coming fron the controller not being adjustable.… Expand
  14. Rupert_Pupkin
    Apr 9, 2021
    8
    I'm giving this game an 8 for my level of enjoyment and appreciation of it. Do I actually think it's worth an 8 in terms of quality and execution? Not at all. The execution and gameplay are pretty average, really. At times very frustrating.

    I was a little disappointed that the game basically has nothing to do with the movie. I hadn't researched that in advance. But I thought the    I'm giving this game an 8 for my level of enjoyment and appreciation of it. Do I actually think it's worth an 8 in terms of quality and execution? Not at all. The execution and gameplay are pretty average, really. At times very frustrating.

    I was a little disappointed that the game basically has nothing to do with the movie. I hadn't researched that in advance. But I thought the developers did a pretty good job of giving us a similar kind of creepiness as we had in the movie. Mostly fairly subtle and slow moving. Slow paced horror games are totally my thing, so for me this game was right up my alley. The early stages were so so, and I wasn't particularly impressed and quite often frustrated. But as the game progressed I thought it improved considerably. For me the whole end sequence from when you enter the house onwards, was really quite outstanding and gripping. I would actually like the return to this game again one day, solely to experience that part of the game again.

    All in all as a fan of slow paced horror games I found enough to enjoy and appreciate about this game to warrant a pretty high score. I would've given it a 7.5 given the option though.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
65

Mixed or average reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 9
  3. Negative: 1 out of 9
  1. LaPS4
    Jan 29, 2020
    80
    Playably Blair Witch is a game that doesn't stand out, but still any lover of the horror genre will be delighted by the atmosphere the game achieves. Especially for those who have enjoyed the Blair Witch movies and want to live a new experience with the franchise, this title is a work that they will love.
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  2. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Jan 9, 2020
    60
    Good ideas are undermined by overuse and a lack of tension, but Blair Witch does leave you thinking ‘What if?’ and demands to be replayed . [Issue#171, p.97]
  3. GameSpace
    Dec 31, 2019
    75
    Blair Witch is a good homage to the film but stands on its own as a spooky, lost-in-the-woods, romp that doesn't go far enough with some of its story beats.
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