Flesh Made Fear

As survival horror games have used the advancements in technology to scare players in a whole new way, there’s a growing push from fans to take the genre back to its roots. We’ve seen a lot of indie developers attempt to outdo Resident Evil with their own takes, but the new game Flesh Made Fear is one of the few that not only gets it right, but actually tops many of the games that inspired it. Is this secretly the survival horror game of the year? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review Flesh Made Fear, out now on the PlayStation 5.

Set in 1992, Flesh Made Fear tells the story of a bunch of special agents who are headed to Rotwood in an attempt to track down Dr. Ripper, a mad scientist who is believed to have captured one of the team members. What we quickly discover is that the entire town, including the forest-covered outskirts, have been completely overrun by ... something. Are they zombies? Infected humans? Crazy experiments? No matter what it is, with limited ammo and barely any supplies, our team is woefully unprepared for the horror they’re about to discover.

Much like Resident Evil 2, this game allows you to choose between a male agent named Jack “Bones” Richards and Natalie “Nix” Lewis, a female agent who doesn’t have as much health but has more inventory slots. Both characters experience the game in a slightly different way, with some sections of Rotwood only being available for one, while a completely different section is highlighted in Jack storyline. It’s mostly small stuff, but there are puzzles and entire plot points that you inevitably miss out on, so of course you’re going to need to play through both stories.

If you can’t tell from just looking at it, Flesh Made Fear plays into all of the classic 32-bit survival horror cliches. You want tank control? This game plays just like those classic Resident Evil games, right down to having a turn around button. You do all this with fixed camera angles, limited supplies and some truly crummy voice acting. And if you want to open up that door, then you’re going to need to collect a bunch of random items and solve a puzzle. If you’re a fan of those mid-90s survival horror games, then you’re going to ease right into playing Flesh Made Fear.

This is far from the first game to try to recreate the feel of those classic survival horror games, but this one does it better than most. One of the main reasons for this is because it understands how important pacing is to the genre. Far too many of these games simply trap you in a single location and hopes that will be enough, but Flesh Made Fear takes you on an adventure. From the spooky trailer park to the rundown diner on the outskirts of town to the sewer you have to trudge through in order to get to downtown Rotwood, this game takes you on a wild ride with a wide variety of unique locations and constantly changing enemies.

The game’s biggest set piece is the downtown area, and even that is smartly split in to a bunch of smaller, more isolated vignettes. There’s a whole section in a school, a run-down movie theater and a heavily fortified police station. We’re rarely stuck in one single location, something that allows the developers to really play around with the scares. You never know what you’re getting yourself into, and the game does a great job playing with that tension and uncertainty. There are a few moments that are every bit as startling as seeing the zombie dogs crash through the window in that first Resident Evil game, and the sense of dread keeps the game terrifying from start to finish.

I’m also a big fan of the way the game looks. With so many different locations, I was surprised to see the level of detail put into every bit of Rotwood. Every house, restaurant and movie rental store you visit tells a story, and that attention to detail really helps to flesh out the narrative and add to the world building. I’m a big fan of the lighting in this game and all of the weird camera perspectives. Sometimes it feels like half of this game is using a tilted Dutch angle, something designed to keep you disoriented and feeling uneasy.

While all of the horror in the game is genuinely effective, I found the story to be a bit lacking. The initial setup is fine and Dr. Ripper is appropriately cartoony, but the emphasis here is more on pushing the playing from one location to the next than actually giving us real plot twists or story beats. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters and found the ending to be a bit anticlimactic, but had a really good time getting there. I wish there were more big revelations springled along the way or some story beat that subverted my expectations.

A lot of the problems somebody could have with Flesh Made Fear are the exact types of old and outdated quirks that people are nostalgic for. It doesn’t matter that the tank controls are a little unwieldy, because it’s that way on purpose. And the crummy dialog delivered by questionable voice actors? That’s just part of the charm. You can’t really complain too much about the limited ammo and supplies, the logic of the puzzles, and the purposely frustrating camera angles, because those are the things the fans are looking for.

As a game that is doing everything it can to mimic those early survival horror games from the 1990s, I can get on board with this way of thinking. I may not be the biggest fan of tank controls and some of the puzzles are more repetitive than fun, but these are criticisms I would equally levy against that first Resident Evil. This game isn’t fooling anybody; we all know exactly what it’s doing. This is for anybody whose ears perked up when they heard the words “tank control,” so if you’re somebody who hated those classic survival horror tropes, then this won’t be the game for you.

I’m going to make the argument that Flesh Made Fear works as both the nostalgic throwback experience that you’re looking for, as well as a brand-new experience that builds onto and improves those classic games from the 1990s. This is a briskly-paced, wonderfully-executed game full of frightening scenarios and genuine surprises. The old school experience is so authentic that I would rank this above some of the mainline Resident Evil games. Flesh Made Fear is a game confident in what it wants to be, and delivers every bloody step of the way.