Butcher's Creek Review

Butcher's Creek is a melee-action horror game from David Szymanski of DUSK and Iron Lung fame. The third entry in an unassuming horror anthology, following Squirrel Stapler and The Pony Factory, Butcher's Creek looks a lot like Outlast—but it feels like Condemned: Criminal Origins with a focus on brutal melee combat. It's a very unsettling game, full of fucked-up shit, but throwing a shovel at someone's head will never stop being satisfying.

The Setup

The world is ending, the sun and stars have disappeared, and Earth is shrouded in eternal darkness. You're a freak who likes to watch snuff tapes. Conceptually, snuff movies have always been on my list of icks, so this is enough to make me suitably uncomfortable. Your character is visiting the titular town of Butcher's Creek to find "depraved videotapes" but gets more than they bargained for. One of the locals thumps you on the noggin' and drags you into a cell, scheduled to be hacked to pieces. The star of your very own movie.

Your only goal now is to get the Hell out of there, and the only way out is through. It's a simple premise—for the most part—and along the way, you'll find notes that expand upon the lore of who these people are and why they do what they do. These notes are the primary way the story is delivered; they're well-written, often brutal and sometimes border on darkly comedic.

Lights...

Butcher's Creek mostly takes place in underground areas and the occasional shack, house or section of forest. Now is a good time to bring up my one major gripe with the game: it is too damn dark. Likely by design, you can hardly see past your own two hands in some areas. Horror games should be dark to evoke a fear of the unknown and to build tension, but it can feel more frustrating than atmospheric, especially when there is a VHS filter applied to everything as well. It's difficult to appreciate the design when you're just staring into fuzzy blackness.

Of what is visible, there's a lot to like. The found footage aesthetic suits this game really well, and there's a dreamlike quality to it. The lack of graphical fidelity means your mind fills in the blanks, it's a similar feeling to a lot of early PC games that had to make do with the technology available at the time. It also makes everything even eerier, figures emerging from the dark hardly look human at first. A swift axe to the head proves otherwise.

...Camera...

You came to Butcher's Creek to find "depraved videotapes" and you do. These tapes confer certain bonuses: raising your max health while you have them in your inventory; opening locked doors which usually take you to a secret area; and finally, saving your game. In the beginning, it can be tough trying to strike a balance, but I found that even by the halfway point I was drowning in tapes.

What scenic getaway would be complete without a camera to capture any snuff opportunities (snuffatunities, if you will)? How you heal is one of several unique mechanics this game has. You recover health by photographing corpses and/or viscera. You can also find polaroids throughout the levels which offer an instant health boost. It fits the theme but doesn't add much to the game besides an additional step to the traditional healing process.

...Action!

Combat in Butcher's Creek requires careful management of your stamina and weapon condition. Improvised weapons include pipes, wrenches, hammers, box cutters and more; all of these will eventually break, which keeps the combat feeling dynamic as you never really settle into just one type of weapon. These weapons can be swung, thrown or kicked into enemies. Kicking in and of itself is a great way to deal with the freaks you come across.

Enemies crumple with satisfying ragdoll physics and usually grunt in a substantial amount of pain when they go down. The freaks became an instant highlight for me. On the one hand, their AI is very basic and is prone to wandering around aimlessly. On the other hand, they have a list of cries for when they see you or get hit by you, with some standouts being "AGH FUCK" and "OW MY TEETH." They're not smart, but they can be challenging.

In the early levels, combat feels a lot more tense even when there are just two or three enemies in a room. As you start to square up against more freaks and tougher variations, you feel like you're improving just on your own merit. It's not a long game, but it's long enough to make you feel like you just turned around and became the monster in a horror movie. You can also find environmental traps like spinning blades, flame columns and ominous bottomless pits that welcome freshly kicked enemies with open arms. Overall, there's a lot of variety to the encounters with enemies and combat flows really well.

That's a Wrap

Butcher's Creek lingers on the mind for a while after the credits roll, but there's not a lot of replay value. It could be improved by adding a timed mode or rankings to compensate for its short runtime and linear design. I can think of worse ways to spend two hours though; on an unrelated note, that's about the runtime of Captain America: Brave New World.

Without spoiling too much, this game goes to some pretty insane places. One of the most apt descriptions I could think of when sitting down to write this review was "Cabin in the Woods on meth" and I think that holds up pretty well. There's a lot to love here, packaged into a really tight two-hour game which you can pick up for a very reasonable US$9.99 or AU$14.50.

The Final Verdict

Butcher's Creek is a tight, visceral and intense action horror that nails its brutal combat and depraved atmosphere. Perfect for fans of Condemned looking for a twisted two-hour melee-em-up.

Get Butcher's Creek on Steam