Heartworm Review — Beyond the Static

Heartworm is an interesting horror game built with nostalgia for the first generation of horror games, oozing Resident Evil and sobbing Silent Hill tears as it drags players through a heart-wrenching storyline built on supernatural elements, haunting visuals, and relatable feelings like grief and regret. A master of environmental design in the horror medium, Heartworm almost scares more when it isn’t actually trying to scare you, with the anticipation of fear feeling far more impactful than many of the game’s scares. This is, unfortunately, not helped by the areas where the game falls a bit flat, though it still remains a fantastic little horror title worth checking out.

Heartworm, in classic horror design, gives you very little backstory before it sends you into the decrepit halls of a ruined home, where our protagonist Sam seeks a way to communicate with her lost grandfather. Armed with just a camera, she ventures into a long-since-abandoned home and finds herself lost on the other side…

What you’ll notice about the game before anything else is just how nostalgic Heartworm is for Resident Evil and Silent Hill. An old-looking pixel filter matches the game’s low-poly models, reminding me of an era when I had to hook up my PlayStation using AV cables. The game even features honest-to-gosh tank controls. As nostalgia-inducing as all of these features are, they are thankfully optional; I ended up going with the old-school filter in my game but opted to avoid the tank controls and went with more modern aiming.

Of course, as I have been very vocal about in the past, it takes more than well-executed nostalgia bait for me to appreciate a game. For a genre like horror, I am especially demanding, since I love the medium so much. Thankfully, Heartworm delivers exceptionally as a horror game.

The game’s strongest aspect, by far, is its level design and environmental storytelling. The game does an incredible job of telling the stories of denizens long past or supernatural maladies inflicted upon the world through textless storytelling, using its environment to paint a clear and yet still mysterious picture. The game’s levels and environments are incredibly interesting as well, and I can honestly say that Heartworm has one of the more unique settings of any horror game I’ve seen, with certain areas feeling like something inspired by Nightmare on Elm Street, Silent Hill, and Ringu all at once.

I would also argue that a great deal of the scares in Heartworm came from the game’s environmental design, especially during the game’s first act. Using the familiar camera angle style of the video game horror classics, each shot in Heartworm is intentionally designed: intentional in what it shows you and, more importantly, in what it doesn’t. My biggest “scares” were actually moments of great anxiety as I walked through a door into complete darkness, unsure if the footsteps I was hearing were only mine, not knowing if the flash of my camera would fade only for me to be grabbed by something in the dark.

The game’s incredibly subtle, haunting soundtrack helps a lot in these moments of anxiety. It’s a cruel trick, exploring a location with an utter lack of music, only for a droning, somber song to gradually fade in as you approach a point of interest. Bravo, Heartworm, for all the times you scared me with a sound… or the lack thereof.

Unfortunately, I would say that in some of the more traditional aspects, Heartworm doesn’t succeed very well as a horror game, or at least it didn’t for me. While conceptually interesting, the game’s “monsters” didn’t really evoke in me a sense of fear, nor did I get anxiety when any of these creatures got close to me. While the sound design for all of these creatures was great, visually, they were far too simple, far too recognizable. Nothing about them struck that fear of the unknown or uncanny valley for me.

The more the game threw its monsters at me, the less afraid of it I became, and it wasn’t simply overexposure. I started to approach every shadow, knowing that the worst the game could throw at me simply wasn’t that interesting, scary, or threatening. Mechanically speaking, they weren’t very challenging either; a click of a camera or clever movement, and I was safe every time.

Sam’s voice acting never sold the terror of the situation I was in either; her performance was rather bland, devoid of fear or really any emotion that would tell me I should be taking the situation seriously. Even as I crossed the boundary into a different world, protagonist Sam seemed tired and rather disinterested in the whole ordeal.

That being said, the game’s environments continued to wow me, and the story kept me invested until the end. There are certainly horror tropes present, but it’s well written and drip-fed to you in immersive, out-of-the-way segments that pair well with the game’s incredible visuals, which also do a lot of narrative heavy lifting on their own.

Overall, Heartworm is not the scariest horror game I’ve ever played, and it’s not my favorite of all time. It’s incredibly nostalgic, but nostalgia alone is not enough to catch my interest. However, the game’s storytelling and environments create palpable terror in areas and do an incredible amount of heavy lifting, making up for other areas in which the game can feel weaker.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review of Heartworm. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Heartworm is available on Steam.