I Hate This Place Review – A Comic‑Based Horror Indie with Big Issues

A comic book once again becomes a videogame!

I Hate This Place

PC/PS/XBOX

1/29/26

Rock Square Thunder

I HATE THIS PLACE… is the name of today’s game — not me quitting my job via review — and it’s a brand-new twist on the familiar survival horror experience looking to win over the voracious horror game demographic. On paper, it certainly sounds like a strong contender with its visual style straight out of a comic book, 80s aesthetics, and isometric gameplay, but did some slightly wonky mechanics, bugs, and a lack of direction outweigh the good and leave me saying, “I hate this place” while playing? Well, it wouldn’t be a very exciting review if I told you in the first 30 seconds of the video, now, would it? 

I Hate This Place is a survival horror-meets-crafting game based around the comic book series of the same name written by Kyle Starks and published by Skybound Entertainment, which tells the story of a couple who buy a farmhouse only to discover it comes with some uninvited and very unwelcoming housemates. This video game version tells a somewhat similar story to the comic, involving a young woman named Elena who returns to her family's cursed ranch to try and figure out what has happened to her mother. Elena’s family, the Rutherfords, are unable to leave this horror show; however, Elena herself seems to be able to come and go as she pleases. She reconnects with an old friend who very quickly goes missing and is plunged into a world of monsters, cultists, and ghosts, which sounds spine-chilling and thrilling in theory. Spoiler alert: it isn’t. 

Without giving too much away, we are eventually introduced to “The Horned Man,” who is not, in fact, a member of the brass section, but does seem to be the one responsible for this whole mess, and so we set out to try and get to the bottom of this mystery through what amounts to an 8-10 hour campaign. I Hate This Place’s narrative is perhaps the game’s biggest weakness, which is a major disappointment considering how interesting of a concept it has.

The main problem here is that many integral parts of the story happen in an anticlimactic, almost accidental way that players may find themselves randomly stumbling into. Many of the “Big Reveals” occur during side quests which could easily be missed. The Horned Man is also not at all scary, making for a lackluster villain, and despite a greater government conspiracy eventually being introduced, the writers don’t move in that direction as much as I would have liked. Yes, there are a smattering of notes within the facilities to discover, but these aren’t enough to save the overall story or flesh it out in a meaningful way. Even worse, some side quests couldn’t be completed once certain story beats had finished, which meant I was left with plenty of “unfinished business” as the game ended. 

But enough about the story, let’s explore a bit more about what I Hate This Place is from a gameplay perspective.  It is indeed a survival horror game, though there is a good deal of resource gathering and base-building mixed with a fair bit of stealth. The developers describe it as a “craft-based survival horror game” which seems quite fitting. The game is quite open in its exploration as you’ll be traversing the Rutherford ranch, as well as surrounding forests, bunkers, and other creepy locales. 

Unfortunately, combat and stealth elements only fare slightly better than the game’s underwhelming story. I was entirely “whelmed” by the combat. Enemies aren’t always the brightest bulbs in the box, with some of them best dealt with by beating them down with a variety of weapons or by sneaking past them with distractions like tin cans you find around different locations. These enemies aren’t impossible to contend with, but they do feel like bullet sponges, soaking up shot after shot even point‑blank with a shotgun. They also eat grenades for breakfast, barely fazed by their use. The game tracks your noise level, which is indicated by comic‑style “thud” pop‑ups of different colours, which, credit where it's due, is a neat design element. Stealth is honestly decent in spots, though cheap enemy AI that follows you incessantly spoils much of the fun. You’ll die and die often, and yes, lose plenty of progress along the way. The concept of having to rely on sound or even dodging loud environmental hazards such as glass so as not to trigger enemy awareness is a novel one, albeit poorly executed. 

It’s also worth noting that you’ll need to keep an eye on your character's stamina during combat, which can be annoying, keep her fed, and of course, bandage up any damage you withstand. Don’t you just love a stamina bar?

One of the more interesting aspects of the gameplay is the day/night cycle, with night‑time, as you might expect, being far more dangerous. Once the sun goes down, monsters are incredibly aggressive, with players only having a small torch, or a flashlight as you might like to call it, to help guide their way. 

Thankfully, the crafting isn’t too difficult to wrap your head around, nor is gathering the necessary resources to create new weapons and items, of which there are a decent variety. I Hate This Place does feature base‑building elements that make sourcing food and resources easier as well as allowing you to update your campsite. There are blueprints which can be found around the map, in chests or on tables, or you can simply fill your aunt and uncle’s front garden with toilets, which is arguably one of the most entertaining aspects of the entire game. There are also a few puzzles and codes that you need to decipher from notes you find, which will unlock blueprints for better weapons and throwable objects. These puzzles typically aren’t too hard, but I did enjoy figuring them out nonetheless. 

Puzzles come in different formats too, such as paranormal investigations on ghosts that haunt different locations. For these investigations, you enter a ghostly dimension where your lantern changes elements of the landscape, revealing pieces of the ghosts’ story and helping you discover what happened to them to cause their hauntings. Most of these puzzles were fun to solve, even if there isn’t much of an indication as to what the correct answer is. As a sidenote, within the first ghost encounter, there are a bunch of angry ghost deer that send you back to the beginning of the area if they catch up to you, and they are SO annoying. 

The overall visual design of I Hate This Place is very pretty. It’s colorful during the day and moody during the night, with the effects of the curse spread across the ground, mutations traveling across the labs and nearby areas, and excellent monster designs all being a highlight. The developers have done a nice job of capturing the look and spirit of the comic book, a style that adapts well to a video game format. Menu designs also look lovely for the most part, with your notebook being a highlight. It is full of sketches, tracks current quests, keeps track of notes, and offers a decent map for getting around. That, alongside a soundtrack which is subtle though effective in its approach, paints a very cohesive picture, with the 80s aesthetics hitting the same cultural spots as shows like Stranger Things. The game does feature some voice acting, but the performances aren’t particularly memorable, sounding a bit stilted, and it is worth noting that sometimes lines aren’t voiced, the VO comes in halfway through a line, or doesn't match the speech bubbles.

During my playtime, I did encounter a few bugs: NPCs and enemies duplicating themselves, maps not opening, quests not ticking themselves off, or markers taking me to the wrong location. Enemy attacks would often glitch and continue to damage me despite no longer happening, and the game also locked up twice, which lost me around 20–30 minutes of progress both times. Hopefully, these are review build bugs that will be patched in short order, but they are worth noting regardless. Settings include language options, resolution, and a smattering of visual options. Framerate can also be toggled, but there isn’t really much else of note as far as accessibility is concerned. And on the topic of framerate, the game ran consistently smooth on PC, though it is not Steam Deck verified, so playing on the handheld was a little bit ropey.

I don’t think I Hate This Place is a terrible, Krampus-level game, but it's not as good as it should have been. The gameplay is decently fun in a few spots, the premise is interesting, and the world is something I could see myself getting invested in… if the story was perhaps told in a more engaging way. I wish the developers had leaned more into the stealth horror elements that many of the trailers showcased — either that, or had gone all-in with the ghost hunting and folklore concept. Instead, we get a bit of a hodgepodge of ideas that never quite come together to make a cohesive survival horror experience. Overall, I Hate This Place is a disappointment. I wanted so badly to enjoy myself more than I was, but by the end, I was playing simply to get to the conclusion because of this review, and it can only be recommended to hardcore fans of the comic book series or those in desperate need of a new survival horror game.

Table Lamp/MEDIOCRE

Table Lamp of Mediocrity