Dread Fields

With indie horror films like Backrooms and Obsession cleaning up at the box office, there’s a good chance that you might be looking for a short and effective horror game to keep the scares rolling into summer. If that’s the case, then let me introduce you to Dread Fields, a low-budget thriller set on a haunted farm. Something strange is going on and it’s up to you to get to the bottom of it, all while doing the daily chores. Is the simple life for me? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review Dread Fields, the newest game from Podoba Interactive.

This is the story of a man who escapes the noise and commotion of the big city in hopes of finding peace and quiet in the middle of nowhere. All he wants is some good, old-fashioned farm living. I’m talking about getting up early to feed the chickens, tend to the cow, chop down some grass and fish for dinner, just like his ancestors. No more cell phones, no more traffic jams and no more annoying neighbors, just days filled with chopping wood and planting seeds in the garden.

But life on the farm doesn’t turn out to be as peaceful and relaxing as the man was hoping for. Right from the first night, strange things start happening. Somebody starts killing the livestock, you discover a grave that has been recently dug up, wild boars break through your gate, a large statue has been mysteriously erected in backyard and I’m filled with great existential dread every time I milk the cow. Something is clearly going down on this farm.

A lot of the horror is built around the repetition of farm life. In practice, you’re doing the same morning, afternoon and evening routine, day in and day out. Chop wood, feed the chickens, go to bed. Rinse, repeat. However, as the farm changes around us, our daily tasks start looking a lot different. Now there are more steps or an extra obstacle we need to overcome. Does this have something to do with the old guy who keeps showing up? Or maybe the grave that was dug-up in the backyard? What’s going on?

I will admit, the core mystery is really good. Just enough spooky stuff happened every day to keep me invested, and there are a few genuinely effective scares sprinkled throughout. There are a lot of weird, out-of-place items scattered around the farm, each hinting at a dark and violent backstory. It’s not a long game, but is also a bit of a slow burn. The game takes its time revealing its hand, turning up the tension little by little as the days go on. All this pays off in a big way once we get to the reveals. This is a well-crafted horror game.

One thing I really like is that there’s a real incentive to play the game multiple times. Dread Fields has multiple endings depending on how curious you are as a player. Once you understand what the game expects of you, it frees you up to experiment and figure out how to save your livestock and, most importantly, unlock the two mysterious doors in your house. All this leads to multiple conclusions, all of which are guaranteed to stick with you.

This is one of those games that really surprised me. Between its simple look and relatively small farm, I worried that there wouldn’t be a whole lot to Dread Fields. I feared that it would be 90 minutes of jump scares and little substance. But that wasn’t the case. The deeper you dig, the more the game has to offer. It doesn’t hold your hand or spell out its story, allowing you to put the clues together and fill in the blanks. Being left in the dark not only kept me guessing, but made me even more interested in all of the mysterious events happening on the farm.

That said, I do wish there was a little more variety to the daily chores. I don’t mind the repetition, but it would have been nice if there was a little more to do on the farm. There’s a bit that involves planting seeds, which first involves digging in the dirt and adding fertilizer. That may not sound like fun, but it’s a nice diversion from opening windows and gathering eggs. The game needs more activities like that.

When it comes to the visuals, the game isn’t much to look at. I think this works to its advantage when it comes to some of the supernatural scares, especially the main villain, but the farm itself is pretty boring to look at. The game reminds me of a lot of early 32-bit games from the mid-1990s, complete with low-polygon characters and 2D sprites representing grass and other crops. It didn’t click with me early on, but as the horror elements take hold, I liked some of the weird designs.

For a game that is barely two hours long, Dread Fields got under my skin and stuck with me. The game does tension well, and even after you’ve beaten the game, there are still multiple paths leading to brand-new endings. This is a fun and efficient horror game that makes the most out of its single location. I guarantee that you’re never going to look at milking a cow the same way after playing this game.