Absence (PC) review "Unity tragic"

Absence begins like so many Sunday mornings from my twenties. You wake up in a random bathroom, not knowing where the hell you are, unable to remember how you got there, and terribly confused. Unfortunately, this time your awakening doesn't involve someone asking you what you're still doing there before not-so-politely telling you to leave. No, instead you see yourself out the door and into the cold, forbidding night...

The game gets one thing right off the bat: mood. Honestly, the most frightening part of the experience is realizing the bathroom floor that served as your temporary bed is located in the middle of a forest, and it's currently pitch black. You hear no music, save for the semi-rhythmic song of the crickets and the steady thrum of your own heart. It's funny because I've played, read, and watched so many horror stories that try to scare you with supernatural or speculative beasts, not realizing that sometimes the most heart-pounding situations involve more grounded, realistic, simplistic concepts like “being lost in the woods in the middle of the night, hoping a frickin' bear doesn't pop out and crush your skull.”

The game does a fantastic job of avoiding predictability early on. You don't quite know where the voyage is going to take you, and that uncertainty proves disquieting. You expect your antagonist to be something from the wilderness, which could be stalking you as you traipse your way to the next campaign beat. This setup proves to be a good way to put players on edge because you allow them to scare themselves, at least for a while. Soon enough, though, the villain has to make its appearance, and that's where Absence falls apart...



The early outs see you following a path to other locales, and eventually to a huge, locked gate. One of three things transpires here with most players (based on “Let's Play” videos I watched): 1) They give up entirely because they're not sure how to open the gate, 2) They check the premises, thinking perhaps there's another way in. It turns out they're technically correct, as the protagonist can clip through one of the gate's hinges and enter without actually solving the puzzle. Lastly, 3) They might actually find the key for the gate, which is incredibly tiny and roughly the same color as the table upon which it sits. At this point, you have an idea where this experience will end up. You know it's going to make an earnest attempt to hit you with quality content, only to end up stumbling along the way...

After a few strange tasks, including one that involves taking a key from an enraged magpie (no, seriously), you eventually end up in a generic sewer setting, complete with creepy messages spray painted on the wall. How nice of someone to take the time to write ominous notes in this apparently dangerous place... Your first order of business isn't obvious, but a brief check of the grounds reveals an area blocked off by electrical currents and some fuse boxes to shut off. Initially, this seems like a tedious task with no challenge until you hear a strange call from around a corner: “BOOOWAAA!” or something like that. No, you don't hear a growl or a cliché demonic voice, but a noise that sounds like a cow mispronouncing its moo. It's hard to take the threat seriously because the baying sounds somewhat adorable. That's when you come face-to-ugly-face with the game's main antagonist.

Seriously, what is this genre's obsession with creating monster faces that look like carnivorous coochies? I mean, I get it: almost any beast's standout feature is going to either be an orifice or an appendage, so inadvertent sexual references are inevitable with creature features. Some creators have realized this notion and taken full advantage of it (case in point: Clive Barker's short story “Rawhead Rex,” which featured a phallic menace that was actually a pagan demigod of male sexuality). However, some works accidentally lean a little too hard into the “monster with a mug like a toothy hoo-ha” trope.

Oh, and get used to the generic stage designs you see in almost any Unity-based horror game, because that's what you're getting from here on. Hell, you'll even spot a newspaper on the floor of the sewer talking about “Unity magic,” which is a stock asset that absolutely didn't age well...

Anyway, the big bad here tracks you down and instantly kills you, telling you this segment isn't going to be a walk in the park. So you formulate a strategy to get through this level, which involves locating all of the switches, flipping them in an ideal order, and using the environment to lose the villain once he sees you. There's only one snag to the whole plan: you have finite stamina. Unlike some horror adventures, this one doesn't temporarily deactivate your running capabilities when you get tired. Instead, you die of a heart attack, so now you have two foes to mind while fighting to survive. Oh well, at least your flashlight can temporarily stun the critter...



If you're quick, lucky, and clever, you can escape the sewer. It's appropriately tough, but doable. The exit ushers you into an area that looks like the end of the shebang, complete with a fire escape leading up to the top of a building. You try to ascend the stairway, only to realize it's only there for decoration after you become stuck in the environment, forcing you to close and reboot the app. Eventually, you find your way to another underground location, and you sadly know what to expect...

Absence at last trades unpredictability for stagnancy. Each new stage sports the same sort of objectives, where you search for “switches” while avoiding certain death. Your next mission pits you against the same monster, but thrusts you into an enclosed space that leads to a convoluted hallway. The only way to get through the maze is to read a note at the beginning of the scene, which blatantly tells you which corridors to take. This one requires a lot of planning and some cheapness as well. You have a long way to run and not enough stamina to do so the entire time. Meanwhile, ol' Clam Face follows you with precision, never losing his path. I won't spoil the strategy to get through this one, but it required a lot of thinking outside the box...

Two more “scary” moments pop up, with one that revolves around turning valves while avoiding water as much as possible, as something both aquatic and hungry stirs beneath the sewage. That leads you to a final affair against your primary nemesis, this time pressing buttons to activate an elevator and hoping you can put enough space between the two of you to get the lift running before he climbs on.

Although Absence can be effectively tense with its challenges, it's not all that scary because too much of the campaign feels like a standard asset flip. Mainly, for all the game's attempts to avoid predictability, it ends up coming across as just another cheapo horror adventure on Steam. I have to applaud developer Samuel Sprague's valiant effort, but this one sadly turned out more rote than inventive.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (October 04, 2023) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.