GTFO: The best horror video game you need to try this Halloween season

Many games can be used to make players fearful. You may be forced to obsess over each bullet because of resource scarcity. You may be assaulted by grotesque beasts, which can make your skin crawl just from the sight. There are games that obscure your senses so you can’t see or hear what’s around the next corner, and games that give you no way to fight back at all. And then there’s the old-fashioned jump scare — ever reliable — like zombie dogs unexpectedly crashing through a window.

GTFODoes all of these things. The co-op horror gamer goes one step further. It makes it difficult to infuse each second with terror and surpass every other game of the genre. There are many players that try. GTFOIt will be called punishing. Some will insist it’s downright unfair. But the game’s brutal challenge serves a purpose: As you explore the labyrinthine laboratories and tunnels that make up the oppressive underground facility known only as The Complex, the crushing awareness that the smallest slip-up might result in you and your team losing hours of progress creates tension and terror unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

GTFOYou play the role of one of four prisoner sent underground against their will to fulfill esoteric goals at The Warden’s direction. The Complex is infested by a variety of “Sleepers,” horrifically mutated forms that lash out with whip-like tongues from toothy orifices. Gameplay is a mix of stealth and shooting combat; you’ll do your best to clear each new room of Sleepers without waking them up, which generally involves skulking around in the dark while syncing up melee strikes with your teammates. Whiffing a bonk or simply taking a step at the wrong time might wake up the whole room, which, if your team doesn’t outright wipe, results in wasting precious ammo (at best). This can lead to you being beaten down later on in the level when your alarm sends out endless mutants at you. It will test your accuracy, your improvisation and your ability make quick decisions under pressure.


The GTFO drop sequence, where four prisoners fall into The Complex

Understandably, GTFOSome players find this difficult to sell. Some players may not have the time or patience to spend hours playing a game that could end in a misfire and you being sent back to the main menu. Although checkpoints have been a recent addition to the game they are still very rare. Missions can take up to an hour to complete and may only contain one or two checkpoints. This feels intentional, as with every other design decision made by 10 Chambers. The Complex has many complexities.

But even when you suffer a crushing wipe, you’re never really leaving empty-handed. Even a failed run can grant you new boosters — boons like increased ammo or health regeneration that you can apply to future attempts. But more importantly, you gain knowledge that you didn’t previously possess.

There are many of GTFO’s difficulty comes from not knowing what’s going to happen next. Sometimes, mission objectives involve simply finding and transporting an item back to their extraction point. This task may involve multiple tasks, such as typing in commands to locate the item and reading environmental clues that determine its route, digging down to find ammunition or navigating dangerous side roads. Once you know what to expect, though, you can plan accordingly: Maybe on your next run, you’ll bring two deployable turrets instead of one, or head straight to the critical path without feeling the need to explore quite as much. Failing a mission after two hours of sneaking and scraping by feels bad, obviously, but every wipe imparts another thread of knowledge that you’ll eventually weave together into a successful run.

The prisoner uses a motion sensor in a room full of Sleepers in GTFO, with a flashlight illuminating the group of monsters

Photo: 10 Chambers

It’s a great feeling to know that Expedition survived! screen. You have spent enough time in each one. GTFO level, you’ll probably start to feel a lot like the prisoners do: crazed, sick, stressed, beaten, and desperate to return to the surface. GTFO has, bar none, the most consistent and polished atmosphere I’ve ever encountered in a game. The prisoners shake and fidget nervously while you’re choosing their loadouts. They draw sharp breaths as they’re awoken from cryo, and each trip downward into The Complex is a cacophony of sound. Your character hyperventilates during combat, causing sluggish movement if you’re not mindful of your ever-increasing heart rate. In pitch-black passageways, simple glow sticks may seem like an angel’s gift. However, if you turn on the flashlight too early it could end your run. Every new monster that you come across is an unstoppable body horror nightmare and requires different strategies to conquer. Sometimes, your whole team gets teleported outside to a strange desert, which might be on another planet or in an alternate dimension for all you know, and it’s usually all you can do just to survive. At those points, returning to The Complex’s claustrophobic chambers can feel, strangely, like a relief.

GTFO definitely isn’t for everybody, but players who find this all appealing won’t encounter a more consistently terrifying challenge. It’s the perfect game to play with three equally masochistic friends this spooky Halloween season, and the game’s official Discord has active looking-for-group channels where players tend to be friendly regardless of your experience with the game. We prisoners all want to return to the surface, so we are all in this together.

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