Made to Scare.
First-person horror games seem to be a dime a dozen this generation. Soma, Alien Isolation, Outlast, Moons of Madness, Amnesia, and countless more, all use this first-person view to put you in the close-up path of either straight-up horror, or a moody atmosphere to convey a frightening narrative. There are countless ways that each play out, either with light to moderate combat or have you hiding in lockers or under beds. avoiding the dangers that lurk behind you. With Maid of Sker being available through Xbox Games with Gold until November 15th, I decided to try it out, pushing through the 4-5 hour game and walking away from it being mostly unsatisfied but did find it to be a genuinely spooky game nonetheless.
What’s interesting about Maid of Sker over the other aforementioned horror games, is that it’s based on a real place, and a real folklore legend, one popularised by author R.D. Blackmore’s 1872 novel of the same name. In fact, even during the lead up to the game, the estate of the Sker House wasn’t all too pleased with the mention of the building in the game’s marketing. While the game itself doesn’t feature the house, but rather Sker Hotel, it does dance around the legend a bit, taking liberties where it needs to. While much of the story has been altered to suit a videogame, it is none-the-less intriguing that this story has at least some basis in actual events.
Taking place in 1898, you play as a man named Thomas, arriving at a notably small Welsh village via train to track down Elizabeth Willams, his love. He reads her note and then leaves the train, and then proceeds to Sker Hotel. The game has a very Resident Evil 7 vibe of arriving just outside the grounds, wandering around as you then find the building, entering it, and getting caught up in the horror that awaits you. While some of the story is rolled out through phone calls with Elizabeth, via phone booths placed around at certain points in the game, you will find that much of the narrative is through documents you’ll pick up as you explore. The story itself is decent enough, but its reliance on reading much of it will either keep you interested or skipping it entirely, depending on the method you prefer for your storytelling.
The legend of Sker House entails that Elizabeth was trapped in the house by her father and died of a broken heart. While Elizabeth is very much alive as you enter the hotel, her father still plays very much into the story here. You’ll explore the hotel to track down four musical cylinders and a few pages of music, a countersong that just might end the torment plaguing the hotel. As the game is roughly around 4-5 hours in length, you’ll be finding them fairly quickly as you slowly walk around, crouching through passageways, and tracking down keys that are tied to certain doors. The gameplay mechanics lifted from a certain Resident game do keep coming as you’ll have safe rooms that you can save in, swapping out a typewriter for a phonograph instead.
Maid of Sker, similar to a few of its inspirations, has no combat, and while you can cover your mouth to sneak past the blind threats that rely on noise to track you down, there is for some reason large wardrobes littered about, nearly everywhere the game has you venturing into. They became such a regular find that I’m convinced earlier builds of the game were meant to use them as hiding places but were removed for some reason. The game doesn’t allow you to hide from these strange bandaged wrapped foes, but instead simply wants you to crouch in a corner, cover your mouth, not too long or you’ll cough, and then wait for them to pass. When you’re discovered, you’ll have to run away, hoping to find a safe room and hide in there till it all blows over. You do get an item that causes them to drop to the ground, but if you use it when trapped, you won’t be able to push through them or get away, making the item occasionally wasteful. You’ll also need to track down refills for that item as well, and they are mostly rare, such are the tonic’s you’ll need for healing.
Noise is what attracts all but one enemy in the game, something I’ll leave for you to discover, but it’s another thing that feels largely lifted from a certain second and third game. As you attempt to hold your breath as you walk around, being careful not to inhale dust spores or the smoke of a fire, you’ll need to avoid slamming into furniture, or running, things that will also attract enemies that are nearby. I do wish the game allowed you to distract enemies more as while there are instances where you can ring a bell to lure them away from a door frame, you cannot throw rocks or other items you find. I found it rather sad that the knife I saw on the table wasn’t something I could grab, allowing me to stab at them, and then run away. There doesn’t need to be any combat for a game like this to be interesting, but the limited ways to avoid these threats upon discovery is very unsatisfying.
You’ll have a map that you can use to explore and thankfully, it does all the things a map should; it tells you the type of key you need for the door, and if an area is closed off. Later on, in the game, you’ll find previously open paths to be blocked, therefore requiring you to use hidden tunnels or longer routes, placing new enemies in your way. It’s an interesting way to force you to use the environment in different ways, removing the comfortability you may have once had. You’ll also need to use puzzles to unlock certain doors or grant you access to items to open said doors, such as playing back a certain tune via a set of bells, or the order of notes on a piano.
The safe zones you’ll discover are your only way to save your progress, and the spacing between a few, especially later on in the game, are sometimes just a bit too far apart, having you replay sometimes up to half an hour if you didn’t backtrack to that one safe zone all the way back at the start of that location. It’s not a bad system to have these as a reliance to save, but the locations of some are either too close to others or farther apart than they should be. Again, had there been systems in place to hide once you’ve been caught, then you would at least have a way to avoid death than sometimes not being able to prevent it.
The game’s sound and visuals really do a great job at creating a very moody and eerie atmosphere, providing you are either playing with the volume fairly high up or using headphones to have those creeky floorboards or shuffling steps more prominent in your ears. The hotel and the locations around it are dark enough without being unable to see where you are going. You won’t carry any sort of light source, and the reliance on what the game provides in its environments is more than enough to see where you need to go. While there isn’t too much voice work, usually just what you’ll hear from Elizabeth via the phone calls, the phonographs also contain story elements, with one, containing nothing but sadistic laughter, to come at just the right moment in the game.
Maid of Sker is enjoyable on its audible and visual atmosphere alone but does suffer in several other categories. The inability to hide after being discovered is where I found the most frustration, especially since you’ll encounter several places that could allow such a tactic. The save system is not as consistently well thought out, leaving some areas of the game with long stretches that may need be replayed should you accidentally turn a corner and get discovered, that or boxed in with no place to go. The story itself is another aspect that the game nails pretty well, taking bits and pieces of the actual events and crafting a gaming experience around them. While the real story itself is far more frightening, there is a pretty enjoyable story here if you’re willing to read the notes. Maid of Sker is available via Xbox Games with Gold until November 15th, so I would suggest just downloading it and giving it a try. It’s not terribly original but in some respects, it gets the job done as yet another first-person horror game attempting to get your attention.
Developer - Wales Interactive. Publisher - Wales Interactive. Released - July 28th, 2020. Available On - Xbox One, PS4, Switch, Windows PC. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox One X. Review Access - Maid of Sker was downloaded via Games with Gold by the reviewer.