Slitterhead
Released: November 8th, 2024
Developer: Bokeh Game Studio
Publisher: Bokeh Game Studio
Systems: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S
The name Slitterhead promises all sorts of freakiness. There’s something evocative about it, and knowing the game to which it’s attached has been noted for its body horror only makes the title more promising.
Promise is certainly what the game is full of, with some terrific ideas and an earnest attempt to do them justice. The uniquely grotesque imagery is a real highlight in particular. Unfortunately, it falls short in significant ways, not least for how it just doesn’t have enough going on to justify a campaign that lasts far, far too long.
Oh, and its script repeats the word Slitterhead so much that any impact the title might have had completely evaporates.
Slitterhead,
Slitterhead,
I wanna eat some pita bread,
Slitterhead.
Sorry, had to get that out of my head. Pardon the expression.
Slitterhead’s story is convoluted nonsense, and that’s not an inherently bad thing. Indeed, for a while it manages to be interesting before treading narrative water. You’re a spirit who can possess people in your mission to kill monsters that take over human bodies and bore holes through their victims’ faces. Also you can travel back in time, because why not?
While the spirit completely overwrites the mind of most people, he encounters a few known as Rarities who retain their consciousness and gain powerful abilities when possessed. They also manifest weapons such as claws, swords, and oven mitts out of blood. Yes, oven mitts.
Such absurdity is contrasted against the sheer grotesquery of the Slitterheads, who reveal themselves by bursting out of skulls as swollen masses of what can only be called stuff. After this, they may fully transform into huge creatures with animalistic traits while their host bodies dangle nakedly behind them as approximate vestigial tails.
I hate that the game housing all this bonkers shit didn’t seem to have the resources to make it as awesome as it sounds on paper.
Gameplay is at least imaginative and I wouldn’t describe it as bad. A typical mission sees you pick two Rarities and investigate one of the few locations you repeatedly visit with the general aim of taking down head poppin’ beasties. You won’t just be fighting them, as you’ll have rudimentary investigation, stealth, and environmental navigation to perform.
It’s worth mentioning that, for all one may assume this to be a survival horror, it really isn’t - it’s very much an action adventure, with even its horror elements largely restricted to an overall premise and some moments of squick. You’ll spend a lot of time fighting or chasing Slitters, and between that you’re mostly looking for clues.
You’ll be able to squirt your way from one person to another at any time unless restricted by story, controlling them in a typical third-person fashion. While Rarities are much stronger than regular pedestrians, you still need to switch around a lot.
In combat, you rely on your main characters’ attack power to deal the most damage, but civilian bodies can summon their own blood weapons and have access to two Rarity skills. They also have a pair exclusive to NPCs - a rather effective blood bomb, and a loud shout that’ll draw enemy attention.
Slitterheads are dangerous even in their basic forms, becoming utterly deadly once going Super Slitter on you. Even the most hardened Rarity can be Slittered in moments if they’re not careful. Defensive options are rather shit - either a near useless dodge roll, or a directional blocking mechanic that I’m sure is meant to be good but isn’t.
While focused on enemies, you’ll block regular attacks but take some damage. Icons appear to tell you which direction an attack’s coming from and if you tilt the right stick to match it, it’ll be fully deflected. Icons show up long before the attack connects, and that misleading blow is often followed by a fast combo where subsequent icons appear really quickly. Combined with outright unblockable offense and multiple foes, I lost interest in the whole mechanic.
Nevertheless, fighting is built on a really neat process of flitting from body to body, protecting your main characters by drawing enemies off them and closing in with the kind of cheap shots that games usually reserve for their players. You can’t be too confident though, as the Slitters sense the spirit’s location and won’t stay distracted long enough to do a lot.
Civilians are fragile, and with fights isolated to cordoned spaces, they’re not inexhaustible (unless you use Anita, who summons more). Those knocked down can be revived if gotten to in time, but between enemies and friendly fire, people will die.
Should someone’s taken down while you’re possessing them, you have a limited window of time in which to move house, and it’s game over if this occurs more than once. Making sure to get out of dodge before “dodge” is mercilessly slaughtered becomes an essential consideration.
The morality of using regular civilians as meat shields and human sacrifices is glossed over, addressed almost as if the writers felt obligated to do so. Considering the tutorial mission has you get down from a building by throwing your host off it and possessing another before you hit the ground, you’d think it’d be a major plot point.
Still, it’s a fun gimmick for doing hacking n’ slashing!
Every Rarity has their own main weapon and three abilities that’ll inform their role as either damaging or supporting fighters. One of their powers will also be usable by the other, rounding both characters out to four each. Abilities cost HP, replenished by sucking up the blood that’ll splash the floor during a fight. I very much enjoy the concept of using spilled blood this way.
Julee fights with giant claws that she can charge up for extra damage, and has a mass revive ability. Alex, meanwhile, compliments his sword with a blood shotgun and the disturbing power to turn possessed people into time bombs. One of the more overpowered characters creates a tommy gun that decimates Slitterheads with a negligible penalty if there’s enough blood on the ground.
I won’t describe the optional unlockable character, save for how hilariously strong they are. I was very, very entertained by them.
Chase sequences similarly use possession as you throw yourself into civilians ahead of you to keep up with your target and get through obstacles. While you can damage a fleeing Slitterhead during a chase, almost all of them end with the creature reaching a scripted destination. Plus the often sluggish attacks make trying a pain in the ass.
Some Slitters are able to hide by getting out of view and taking a new human form. You track and expose them by following a misty trail, and can see through their eyes via a Sightjack power that’s been taken right out of the old horror game Siren. Such a sequence is a great idea, but it’s overdone to the point of exposing its tedious simplicity.
Combat suffers from this exposure as well. You’ll be fighting many Slitterheads, often more than once thanks to that time traveling conceit, and there’s just not enough to keep it fresh. While initially a pleasingly creative endeavor, such fights - often rather lengthy ones - grow exhausting as they relentlessly occur.
The rest of the gameplay isn’t offensive but it’s threadbare in presentation and interaction.
Stealth’s as skeletal as it gets, with incredibly stupid guards who don’t follow you if you’re spotted. Break their line of sight and they’ll instantly think they imagined you even if you were a few feet away. Sneaking sections try to spice things up by occasionally having you possess your way past guards, but with plain corridors and no tension whatsoever, it’s a mere routine.
The inability to possess anybody hindering your progress is a really convenient coincidence for the gameplay, huh? This, much like the fucked up way you’re using innocent people, is mostly breezed past with a bit of bullshit reasoning. Fair enough, at least it’s there.
Missions feature a lot of walking and talking with a handful of moments where you possess specific people to get information. Other sections involve clambering up stuff and using blood tendrils to fling yourself to preselected grapple points like an extremely discounted Spider-Man.
Very little AI is running the NPCs. They simply don’t react when you leave their bodies, no matter where they’re taken. Instead, they just stand there as if waiting for a bus. Similarly, passers-by aren’t bothered by anything other than actual violence, so they won’t be worried if someone they were talking to just wanders off.
Just a little animation would have stopped the lack of reaction feeling so completely unbelievable. Make NPCs act groggy when departed, and have their pals call after them when you take control. Hell, just make them shrug if anything more is too much. Give them a little something to breathe life into otherwise robotic surroundings.
After missions there are lots of dialog scenes between the spirit and Rarities to explain the meandering plot. Dialogue is poorly written for the most part, but there are some cute exchanges. While the main story drags on, it dabbles with interesting themes regarding identity and the medium’s favorite story concept, revenge(™).
The Slitterheads themselves are capable of full speech and feelings, just as likely to communicate fear and pain as they are mockery and intimidation. They’re surprisingly humanized despite appearances, and their humanity or lack thereof is a big part of the plot, even if said plot goes back and forth on the conclusions it draws.
While we’re here, I must strongly complain about something others will find trivial. Uncharacteristic of me, I know.
Not only is this one of those frustrating games that accompany dialog text with stock voice lines unreflective of what’s being said (hate that), Slitterhead might be the worst ever offender. It’s not just a few words per line - the spirit will repeat lengthy sentences that aren’t even in the same ballpark as the text. These lines are also mumbled to an annoying degree.
Maybe they were trying to be weird on purpose, but it sucks.
In one scene, an antagonist does the same thing but worse. For one line only, he speaks something of a similar vibe to the text, but still completely different. It only happens once, which means they could easily have written or recorded the fucking things to match. It's silly to a jaw-dropping degree, and I'm not even sure that poor localization fully explains it.
Anyway, the time travel is largely an excuse to have you replay levels with slightly different events. There are also items and Rarities to find, including those vital to progression, that you might miss the first time around. This means replaying missions, boring bits and all, with loads of dialog boxes to skip through, the only saving grace being the choice to exit a mission and keep what you’ve found.
As well as talking scenes, the menu between missions is where you can level up each Rarity, using skill points to upgrade their weapons and abilities alongside a bunch of passive skills. Some of the passives are quite interesting, such as generating shockwaves upon possession or grabbing your arm and instantly sticking it back on if it gets sliced off.
Oh yeah, that can happen. The slicing. If you can’t get it back immediately, you’ll have to wait for it to regenerate.
A few optional fights are found in certain missions that award new clothing when beaten. I love my cosmetics, but the ones here are practically never worth it. Mostly basic recolors or slight clothing alterations in exchange for tough battles. One of the hardest fights in the game unlocks a beige reskin of a face mask. Beige. That fight sucked, and I can’t help feeling like it’s a joke at the expense of the player’s time.
Controls are straightforward but a bit wonky and the graphics are thoroughly unimpressive. Notably, there are so few NPC character models that you can be surrounded by doppelgängers. The game has an undeniable “budget” vibe to it, further compounded by sparse audio that feels downright alienating. While a budget feel isn’t necessarily condemning, it’s hard not to feel like we’d have a much better game if it had the resources to do the premise justice.
One thing deserving of unequivocal praise is the way the Slitterheads themselves look. The bulbs of writhing flesh, chitin, and gelatinous sacs that billow out from the burst heads of their hosts are not just gross but visually inventive. When fully unfolded they’re a sight to behold, huge twisted things vaguely resembling creatures like insects or octopuses. They truly live up to the body horror billing, not least for those still-humanoid bodies flopping around behind them.
Another noteworthy thing about the monsters is how disturbingly beautiful they can be. Slitterhead might not boast impressive graphics, but it’s got some visually complex creatures with vibrant color schemes that serve to underscore how alien they truly are. I’m impressed by things so gross being so pretty.
What aren’t pretty are the weaker mook-like monsters that also show up. They’re essentially walking penises, easily the most phallic things I’ve ever seen in a videogame outside of literal genitalia. They’ve got nude human legs, then it’s just a shaft, a cock-like head, and a “mouth” that isn’t trying to hide the fact it’s meant to be foreskin. They have foreskin mouths, people!
If you're really unlikely, they might swallow your entire head with their foreskin mouths, and that's a sentence I just get to say.
They’re not just disgusting, they’re downright distressing to look at and I hate them. So congratulations to whoever designed it, because damn your horrible violation truly unsettles me, and I’m legitimately impressed.
Slitterhead is full of great ideas and some truly memorable examples of body horror despite not feeling like much of a horror game. Perhaps with more of a budget behind it, those positives could’ve been done justice, but sadly this isn’t the case. The possession gimmick allows for imaginative action scenes that are let down by repetition, lacking variety, and a bunch of less thought out gameplay that bogs the action down.
Someone throw some money behind this concept, please. It deserves to be in a much better game.
6/10
