Phoning it home.
The DreadOut Remastered Collection has one hell of a trailer. As a young student wandering the halls of an old forgotten school, haunted by apparitions and other spooky entities, you'll be armed with just your cellphone to combat these horrors. While the premise of tackling ghosts of Indonesian legend is a sound one, the execution of many of its encounters leaves you just as drained as a cheap cell phone battery.
Despite my annoyances with the DreadOut Remastered Collection, I do still find much of it to be well made. The atmosphere is expertly nailed, and some of the animations are surprisingly great, especially for a title that is aiming to pull off that PS2-era experience. This is first and foremost a clone of Fatal Frame, mostly swapping from a traditional camera to a cell phone, albeit gaining a DSLR camera about midway through the game. Both DreadOut and Keepers of the Dark, which was a DLC added to the base game are around about 4-5 hours long, with the latter being more of a challenge room experience than something draped in narrative. As it tends to rely on the former to convey its story, it is best to leave Keepers of the Dark for last.
DreadOut has you playing as Linda, a student out on a field trip before they encounter a bridge that is destroyed and a path to the town ahead. As the teacher loses control of her curious students, it's not long before you are all trapped in the nearby school and picked off one by one. There are a collective of typical personalities here, but apart from one student, most are one and done moments before they meet their grizzly fate.
Being a short experience, the school itself is rather small, despite the spacious nature of its two floors. You'll find locked doors that require exploration to solve, and the few moments where you'll need to track down a key. The halls are also haunted by numerous spooks, all of which you'll snap a few pics of and dissipate them into nothingness. These encounters are fine enough due to being able to maneuver around. Sure, you'll get knocked down by some as they make their presence known, but it's not until you get to the boss encounters where the game sort of falls apart.
Midway through the game, I almost quit. This is due to the Scissor Phantom boss. You'll approach the small room and then encounter him. Each successful picture causes him to appear elsewhere in the room. The problem is the speed and execution of pulling up the camera in time since he is already extremely close to you regardless of being prepared for him to pop back up. He has to be framed in such a way and often the controls and response time of pulling up the camera cause this battle to be nothing but frustration.
What adds insult to injury is how you come back after each death. You'll enter limbo and run back to the light. However, each time you die, the distance of the run increases. Eventually, you'll feel like you're running for a full minute or more. Eventually, you'll find it is easier to just reboot the game after each death to just reload the checkpoint. This mechanic is far too punishing for what can be a few cheap deaths, especially with the Scissor Phantom.
During these moments in Limbo, when you are bored to death from running, the game will flash up tips and messages like “You've been playing for a while, consider taking a break” or “Winners don't do drugs”, which made me laugh. As I said, I ended up just rebooting the game each time I died because the run started to feel like it was all I was doing.
Eventually, you'll find a DSLR camera which has an active light flash. You'll use this in a few encounters to aid in defeating the targets around you. Both that and your phone become the main tools you'll use to fight these evil forces. There are items to collect to assist as well, but they are few and far between and felt like an unnecessary inclusion. I guess since most environments are devoid of anything substantial, that adding in notes and collectibles was a way to make exploration pay off in some way. That said, the environments feel empty and lack character.
What does work here are a few key things. The characters, story, and presentation of that story is solid. I do wish the subtitles were far larger as they were in the PC release as they don't suit the Switch’s handheld nature whatsoever. There is an interaction with a spirit later on that was just creepy enough to work, especially with the animations and performance of the character you're engaging with. The story moments work, I just wish the gameplay was as competent.
Keeper of the Dark; however, is a DLC add-on more so than a full experience. Sure, it's as long as the main game, but it reuses environments and enemies from the base game and feels like a boss rush mode with light exploration and next to no story. You'll revisit areas and find out more about the Red Lady and where Linda fits in all of this, but I didn't find this experience to be anywhere near as Interesting as the main story. The bosses are less annoying, but the same issues that plague the main game are all present and accounted for.
Keeper of the Dark has you entering eight locations to tackle over a dozen bosses. You’ll find collectibles that trigger bosses appearing in other rooms and while some rooms are one and done experiences, most require that you revisit them to get the most out what they offer. Some locations can be devoid of much going on until you find what you need to trigger them.
DreadOut Remastered Collection may not really be “remastered” and is more of a direct port, but it does provide a decent amount of spooks should you find the camera mechanic to suit what you want from it. I still think the camera needs to be more responsive, and that some encounters altered to address the size of the environment. Regardless, there is something still charming and well done about the presentation here that can, at times, make those issues sting a little less. If you’ve found enjoyment in the past with Fatal Frame and its sequels, then DreadOut may scratch that itch, just don’t expect too much.
Developer - PT Digital Semantika Indonesia
Publisher - SoftSource Publishing. Released - January 16th, 2025. Available On - Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5. Rated - (M) - Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.