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The Beast Inside – Review

We’re going back to the past in more ways than one today, as we’re looking at The Beast Inside, a survival horror game made by indie developer Illusion Ray. The Beast Inside was originally released on PC back in 2019, but got ported to the Switch as recently as a few months ago, prompting us to take a look at the game. With two different protagonists we alternate between controlling for every chapter, the game offers a bit of a whiplash between hardcore horror elements and a more relaxed walking simulator with puzzles. But it is a dynamic that works oddly well, we’ve found. Story As mentioned The Beast Inside has two main characters you switch between. The first character we get to know is Adam, a young man who lives during the Cold War era and is a code breaker for the CIA. With his pregnant wife, he moves to a mansion in the woods his parents left for him, though we quickly get the impression Adam’s relationship with his dad is strained at best. In the attic, Adam finds a journal belonging to Nicholas. As he gets engrossed in reading about past events, mysterious things start happening around Adam, which betray that there is more to the journal and the house than there seems. Some of it even ties into Adam’s own traumatic childhood. During every other chapter, we switch to playing out Nicholas’ diary fragments. Nicholas lived during the Civil War era and the house also belonged to his family at one point. Like Adam, Nicholas has a difficult relationship with his family and his own demons that haunt him, though for him that seems to be in a very literal sense. At night, strange things go bump in the darkness and Nicholas finds himself having to fight to survive against the strange supernatural entities that haunt him and the house. Graphics The Beast Inside definitely looks a little rough around the edges. The game uses Unreal Engine, though the textures aren’t very great and we noticed on the Switch version the console seemed to have some issues keeping up. Visuals often popped in and out of existence and the cutscenes were a little laggy. Obviously, this is an indie project and not a triple-A title, but even for an indie game, we can’t say this is a good-looking game. Thankfully the monster designs were pretty cool and we did enjoy the atmosphere with the lighting and such. Sound The soundtrack of this game is very subtle, and we noticed that the music faded into the background more often than not. Mostly, The Beast Inside uses very eerie and soft music to make the game scarier, and we definitely felt that was effective. The same could be said for the sound effects, which worked very well. The game does have voice acting, with solid performances from the entire cast that we enjoyed. Gameplay The Beast Inside is a survival horror game, though depending on which character you are controlling, the horror and survival elements might be very light. That is to say, during the ‘day’ chapters where you play as Adam, the game pans out as more of a walking simulator with puzzles. You explore the house and its surroundings at your leisure and there are no real threats. The puzzles are engaging and interesting enough, often requiring you to find and inspect objects from different angles or put stuff together you’ve found. Adam has access to some CIA equipment, including a nuclear scanner device that allows you to track and find anomalies. It’s almost easy to forget you’re playing a horror game during these segments. But you’ll be quickly reminded once you switch to playing like Nicholas. These ‘night’ chapters are a lot more tense and atmospheric. The survival elements become quickly apparent, as various supernatural entities can stalk you during these segments. You also need to keep an eye on the matches and lamp oil you find since you need those to traverse the dark. This, combined with the ample jumpscares, instantly transforms the game into a tense horror experience. Switching between the two characters for each chapter allows for a more diverse experience and prevents either from becoming stale. Despite this, we do have to be honest. The Beast Inside doesn’t really do much interesting within the genre, and aside from a pretty engaging story, the gameplay isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. The scary parts of the game are effective enough and the runtime doesn’t outstay its welcome, so for horror fans, it’s definitely worth a look. But in terms of gameplay, nothing here blows our minds. Conclusion There are games we think nobody should skip. The Beast Inside might not reach that level just yet, but we still think it’s a decent story to sink your teeth into if you like mysteries and jumpscares. If you do, we’d recommend checking out the PC version over the console ports, however. There were considerable graphic issues with the Switch version which impacted our experience.