Dread X Collection 5

Dread X Collection 5
N/A
Metacritic
82
Steam
67.731
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.

A horror anthology in the Dread X Collection series. Featuring 12 new games from up-and-comers along with veterans, all wrapped up in an old, run down party venue that may be hiding more than it's letting on...

Show detailed description

Dread X Collection 5 system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS:
  • Sound Card:
  • Additional Notes:
Similar games
Mortisomem
Mortisomem

Action, Adventure, Casual, Indie

xDr: 63.75
Worst World
Worst World

Action, Adventure, Massively Multiplayer, Early Access

Free xDr: 0.00
Popularity
Reviews
Write a new review
Findar18
Findar18

There are a few gems here, like Karoa, and We Never Left, and Beyond the Curtain, while really just a walking sim, was probably the most unsettling of the bunch. But overall, just kinda meh. If there was a middle option, between recommend and not recommend, I would rate this there. Overall I'm going with a positive review though, because I feel the good experiences are worth it.

-ßЯҢ- J_Reaux
-ßЯҢ- J_Reaux

I had an absolute blast playing this collection! I'll keep it short and sweet:

Story Mode: Loved the birthday party idea and gathering of the gifts. The puzzles were fun to play and we occasionally get a glimpse of the creature like we did in the previous entry. It was like going down memory lane when we actually had birthday parties here. I could actually remember the smell of nasty socks/plastic balls in the ball pit.

Games - Like every other Dread X Collection there is always a diverse set of games and this was no different. I'm not looking for every game to be super scary or every game to have a point. I agree there were some that weren't scary and some where you finish the game and think WTF?........I appreciate the slower paced games in between the really scary ones and thought the balance was really good.

I really enjoyed playing DXC5 and am looking forward to the next collection....I mean "Dread X 666" is previous obvious, right? :)

Here is a link to the first on I played, Hunsvotti:

https://youtu.be/zvvg0bpjYdI

myth0genesis
myth0genesis

Was in the mood for some horror with Halloween coming up and decided to grab this collection. I had a blast playing through every episode, from the campy to the artsy to the seriously spooky. I hope to see another installment sometime in the future! Shout-out to Shakles' "Gallerie": worth the price of the whole collection on its own.

Chotato
Chotato

Worth it for We Never Left alone. Haven't played the others yet but We Never Left was so good, it justified the $5 price I got it for on sale.

Mion
Mion

Loved it. Just as many quality, unique, and interesting games as the other collections. Please keep making these forever.

frostux
frostux

Probably one of the strongest entries in the series for me. I think the packaging is pretty neat too, i.e. the short story wrapped around. Sort of like an interactive menu selection with its own lore and story arc.

Anyway, highlights for me include We Never Left and Beyond the Curtain. The former is just a super creepy and fun take on a type of game you’d find in Stories Untold. The latter is a really slow and desolate game about exploring some props and sets behind the curtains of puppet theater play. They’re both short and to the point, which is why I love the Dread X Collection format to begin with.

Honorable mentions go to Rotten Stigma, the Silent Hill sequel you never played, and Book of Blood. That last one is just a really great take on the hide-and-seek-formula. Great production to boot.

Highly recommended to just about anyone who enjoys horror.

Braden
Braden

This is the weakest in the series but I still recommend it, there's some good games in there.

Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGcTQrNlSoo

Kiraneko
Kiraneko

The mid'ning of the dread x games

McJazzhands | TTV
McJazzhands | TTV

Another entry in the Dread X Collection series, another set of games I love to pieces. So here's a brief description of each section (in order of play) and what I like/dislike about each

Outpost 3000

I really like the hub environments since they were introduced in Dread X collection 2, and having a different dev make them each time helps each game feel unique. In this case, I'm reminded of an old Laser Tag/Arcade combo place from where I used to live, except that place didn't have overnight lock-in parties. The hub area unlocks more and more as you finish more games, and there's a little comic you put together that gives you backstory and I think that's pretty darn neat. The only real complaint I have is that sometimes it can be tough to figure out where to go next. Of course, if you're playing in Free Play mode that isn't an issue.

Hunsvotti

I don't see a lot of daytime horror, but when I do, I tend to like it. Hunsvotti's no different. It's bright and colorful, but also a reasonable challenge. It can be a little tough to figure out where you have to go, but just follow the particle effects and you'll be fine. Just try not to get too caught up in the festivities, you've got a pretty delicate-sounding cough and not everyone in the village likes you. One of my favorites in the collection.

Gallerie

Hoo boy I did not like that tingling sensation in my inner ear. ASMR is a big part of the game and it helped with the immersion more than I thought it would since I've never really explored that part of youtube or anything related to it. It's creepy, but that's what I want. Quicktime events are a bit tough for me since I get flustered if I screw one part of it up, but there are difficulty options in the main menu so you can adjust that to make it easier or harder as you prefer. The game crashed on me when I was playing at one point, but its episodic structure saved me from having any major setbacks. That's some good design right there!

The Book of Blood

This was another one I really liked. Short and sweet with a small map to explore and some surprisingly decent graphical fidelity. I ran into a bug with a certain plot element (the card in the book wouldn't relinquish mouse control back to me when I stopped clicking it, but I only ran into that twice and haven't seen it since), but the puzzles were a decent level of head-scratching for me and your Very Special Friend™ kept me on my toes. Wish there were some more feedback on said Friend's movement, but I know these games are made in a pretty short time so I don't mind all that much.

Karao

Not what I was expecting from the image on the load screen, but it was a good time. I had a smile whenever I heard a certain song and it was a creepy environment to explore. There are some secret goodies to find and I think the reward was worthwhile. One part was a bit hard to figure out what to do since I couldn't talk to anyone, but I got it so it worked out.

Rotten Stigma

It's a mini Silent Hill with some super creepy monsters and some simple puzzles. No notes.

Nah but in all seriousness, I don't have any real complaints about this one. It's well done and hearkens back to classic survival horror resource management.

Spirit Guardian

Eggs...so many eggs...38 broken eggs on the floor (I counted), and yet I had a good time with Spirit Guardian. Nanny kept me on my toes and it was nice that I didn't have to carry every single key with me the whole time I played. Once I got the hang of it I felt pretty good, but that darned thing with the eggs is going to haunt me for a while.

We Never Left

Ye find yeself in yon dungeon. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.

Timely references aside, We Never Left is primarily a text-based adventure/horror game. Important bits are highlighted in red and there's a reference document nearby to help you out in case you get stuck. I know not everyone is familiar with how text games work, but personally I didn't run into any problems. Just take your time and enjoy the ride.

Vestige

I want more of friend skeleton riding a motor bike. It's like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater meets Paperboy and I'm so into it (gee I wonder why) that I still groove to the music a little bit here and there.

I don't really have a lot of notes about what I don't like. The scares made me jump (as they should), but they were manageable. The blink mechanic wigs me out though. I swear, SCP: Containment Breach left a deeply embedded fear of games that make you blink.

Resver

I don't see a lot of black and white in games these days. I mean I get why, but also I kinda wish there were more.

Resver is short and sweet, you can knock it out in ~15 minutes or so. It's freaky, but you can pet cats, so it all works out! I want to say this one is more about just taking in the journey and I think that's accurate. Just buckle up and go for a ride.

Ludomalica

This one's my favorite. It plays like every ouija board story I've heard from my peers and I love it for that. I can't really think of many critiques, any issues I had were because of mistakes I made and I don't really think anything needs to be added or removed, it worked just fine as it was. I've played it twice and it was just as harrowing the second time around.

Beyond the Curtain

I can see why people might not like this one, but I played it twice and on the second run it hit me that it's very similar to some of my childhood nightmares. Taking it in with that in mind changed my opinion on it a fair bit. I can't really say much in the way of complaints. Rather, this is one of those cases where your mileage may vary about whether or not it scares you.

INTERIM

This one feels like a Twilight Zone episode. Great visuals and it left me wondering more about the world it took place in. Only really complaint I have is that the physics for manipulating objects can be pretty darn janky, but you can still work with it. Again, these games are made in a pretty short period of time so I get it. All in all a pretty good time.

TL;DR

All around some pretty darn solid games. Your mileage may vary with some of them, but give them all a try and see what you think for yourself! My personal favorites are Ludomalica, Hunsvotti, Vestige, and The Book of Blood.

Saint Dongymybongybibbonglebonk
Saint Dongymyb…

Bro BEst Burfday Ever bro I just god SPOOKED SOOOOO HARd bro turds all in pants pee on floior paty guests SCREMIONG worf it buy

SirDumbOne
SirDumbOne

Very good already shitted my pants at the first little game

Arigato™
Arigato™

5/5 just for that one Matt Reeves game. \m/

SoulShade
SoulShade

As someone who loves the past Dread X Collection (sans the first one), it makes me sad to see it go downhill like this. With games like Gallerie - which was a miserable slog, Karao - which was just confusing, and Ludomalica - which had a cool idea behind it but greatly overstayed its welcome. That's not to say that all of the games featured in this were bad though.

Rotten Stigma was easily the highlight of the package by giving me massive Silent Hill vibes, The Book of Blood was very well-done and scary, even though I don't know if I'd have finished it without Dread XP's guide. And We Never Left, while predictable, it was very well-done and I liked how it put a text adventure and a walking simulator together. But other than those three, this was very much a pain to sit through and left me completely underwhelmed.

ΤΣΠΠΘ
ΤΣΠΠΘ

Yet another appealing compendium showcasing indie horror. The launcher is a lot of fun to explore and progress, although the overarching story desperately needs some refinement at this point. Karao, Rotten Stigma, We Never Left and Vestige are the highlights. In classic Dread X fashion, there is one game that is so insufferable it needs to be named and shamed, this time it's INTERIM. The other titles float near and about the average mark, with a few extending a little higher.

A celebration of scares.

7/10

Hollow Potato
Hollow Potato

It really pains me to give this a negative review, but this collection has a lot of misses. A lot of the games have some cool ideas, interesting aesthetics and vibes but they lose that intrigue by being more drawn out than they needed to be. It's really annoying to me as with a few pacing tweaks to a lot of them they would be real good!

Even the over-world story felt like a big gut punch as it was just unrelated to the previous storyline that collections 2-4 were all building upon and The Hunt seemed like it was setting up for the fifth collection. I guess not. Outpost 3000 comic book story and puzzles really didn't do it for me.

The big highlight for me was We Never Left. Even though you can see where it's going from a mile away, it's a tightly executed tense experience that knows what its doing and had me on the edge of my seat. Rotten Stigma was another highlight with its silent hill/resident evil vibes and puzzle focus, quite refreshing to see a dev tackle that style. The rest of the games, while conceptually interesting, fell flat by the end credits which is such a shame.

I really hope this isn't the last collection. I don't want the series to end on this note. But I feel like i've had my time wasted and that is upsetting.

Limarch
Limarch

I have played 4 games out of this collection so far, and I truly enjoy them! Each of them are unique and fun in it's own way and I plan on playing all of them. The best thing about this collection though.. it's your birthday and you are at a space centre of some sort where playing the games unlock sections of this place to explore!! That is the most great part haha
But honestly, you won't be disappointed with these short horror games. They are really worth your time.
https://youtu.be/id2Lr3qMDMk

PTGunman
PTGunman

Mixed bag of mostly entertaining horror games. Some are fairly repetitive/simple but if you can get it on sale then I'd say it's worth it. Otherwise maybe check out the 2nd collection instead.

Nauticowl
Nauticowl

Whelp, that sucked.

First time I've ever been actually disappointed with essentially the entirety of a Dread X game. Out of all the terrible games in this collection, only three are worth playing and they will take you just under 2 hours to complete:

HUNSVOTTI - Play as a young Swedish girl who comes to terms with traditional bullying in a surprisingly violent way.

Gallerie - Investigate a somewhat haunted art gallery which gets way more intense than it has any right to be.

We Never Left - Play a game within a game only to learn the reality of your decisions.

These three titles were fantastic, but every other game was absolutely terrible. From poor game design, to just being walking simulators, to giving the player instructions to walk in the game and not run so that they will take more time to finish your poorly made game. Just about everything sucked, and it sucked so hard that the meta-game was actually better than almost every title.

Unfortunately, unless the next Dread X title gets some amazing reviews and is an absolute curveball, the series looks like it's on a downwards spiral and I probably won't grab the next one...

O Alentejano
O Alentejano

It pains me to not recommend this.
I REALLY wanted to love this release, but it's just not as anything as the previews ones.
It's not as scary, the theme isn't as fun, the background story to the collection is completely unrelated to the things you do between unlocking the games. The games themselves are shorter and not as interesting this time around, save for 2 or 3 great ones.
I get that this whole series is experimental, but since 3, things have been getting less and less scary, and debatably with less quality in the projects.

I'm not completely writing it off, but I encourage you to watch some gameplays, see what's up, and if anything looks fun or up your alley do buy it, but don't go in blind thinking it's gonna be like 1, 2 or the FPS one.

Wanderer
Wanderer

I suppose they can't all be bangers. Still 4/5 is a good ratio. Hopefully the next one will be better.

popeyedbark
popeyedbark

It's a great Dread X Game, the lows are a little low on this one but the highs are some of the best games they've released so far

Vince Steel
Vince Steel

Anthology horror is usually a mixed bag, but in this case, it's just a bag full of gold.

12 great games
The hub world is extremely relatable and interesting.
Every inch of it screams punk DIY ethos, because that's what it is.

Buy it now, you won't regret it.

contii
contii

worth the price alone just for Hunsvotti. just get it!

Bookworm
Bookworm

Dread X 5 isn't the best collection in the series but it has enough good games to justify buying it. I especially liked Vestige.

CURTIS GODWIN IS A PIMP
CURTIS GODWIN …

I highly recommend this (and all the other Dread X collections) to fans of horror anthology films as well as horror gaming aficionados. These collections are always a bit uneven, just as anthology films tend to be, but on the whole they're some of my favorite horror gaming experiences. You will enjoy the good entries, the lesser entries will be over quickly(you can exit at any time and you'll still progress the frame story), and the exceptional entries will stick with you.

The frame story is slight, but good enough for what it is and has done a good job of not overstaying its welcome - it's had a couple neat set pieces so far and I'm intrigued enough to see where it goes. I like that the collectable comic pages are back(I think only Dread X 2 had these before?), they're used to good effect here as a signpost the path forward during the frame story.

This is EASILY, EXTREMELY worth the 10 bucks - I tend to get 4-6 hours our of each of these and always leave intrigued. Each individual experience is definitely smaller in scope but Dread XP is working with some insanely talented indie devs - many of these games have obviously had a ton of thought, effort and love poured into them.

JackTakq
JackTakq

The game is as fun as I anticipated but has some problems to go along with it.

First the hub sequence is mentally fun but fails to be scary, it could use some more work.

The games are half horrifying, half funny so I'll be talking about the ones I've played so far. (While avoiding spoilers)

The first game I played was Resver, honestly a weird and (maybe intentionally) glitchy game, with the graphics feeling half made, the story is very confusing and not really comprehensible with the mass being a very strange thing to try to decide what it is. Honestly I don't really suggest Resver. 4/10

The second game I played was rotten stigma. The story was decent and game play was okay, but aside from the occasional jump scare it was a really empty game with a really bad ending in my opinion. 2/10

The third game I played was Hunsvotti which takes place in a Slavic/Scandinavian town in the late eighteen hundreds, the main character is insulted by who I assume to be a grandfather and is called a disappointment, in which the grandfather tells him to preform a Pagan ritual in search for love by dropping seven flowers down the well, while doing so the games graphics change from a happy-go-lucky style to a more grim black and white style. This leads into the main character being called a Hunsvotti and being called a slob. The graphics and music in the game are wonderful but the game play tears it down by being to easy and not scary at all. 7/10

The fourth and fifth games I played I wasn't able to beat so I'll rate them without descriptions. Vestige 8/10 Interim 2/10

And the sixth game I've played is Gallerie which I don't want to ramble on to much about but the game was exellent, the story was well made and the game play was insanely good, the only problem that brings a slight issue is late in the game the missile silo broken so I couldn't fire any missiles leading me to have to get the entire segment completed without translating the text. To be honest there is so much greatness to talk about with Gallerie so I will probably wait until the future to finish this rating but it the end it sums up to 10/10

Ricky Slugface
Ricky Slugface

A cool and freaky anthology that doesn't reach the heights of 3 or 2, but is definitely a step up from the Hunt. Some hits (Karao, We Never Left, Hunsvotti, Resver, Vestige), some misses (Rotten Stigma, Beyond the Curtain), some broken achievements, some fun little activities in the launcher... All the stuff you've come to expect from the series, really.

Skeeter Pan
Skeeter Pan

Another solid entry into the Dread X Horror anthology series, I always get excited when I find out one of these is around the corner. However, I do believe this particular entry feels a little rushed and has the weakest line-up of games thus far. Still, per usual some diamonds in the rough, Gallerie, We Never Left, and Rotten Stigma were my personal favourites extremely creative and well executed I was impressed. I'm also kinda of salty because I want to get all the achievements but 3 of them arn't even working atm, frustrating but I bet it'll get fixed soon. Ran into a few glitches as well but honestly I don't mind it too much considering the limited time and resources spent on these projects. One complaint I do have tho is too many of the games this time have annoying filters and are real eyesores like some of them straight up were too intense visually for my brain and started giving me a headache, getting old I am lol. Overall though I was entertained and even abit spooked at times. The value of these Collections is insane I feel they could charge more and I'd still feel I got my monies worth. Hope they keep going with these I'm a big fan. 8/10

Joe Mangy
Joe Mangy

reviews of order played (spoilers ahead) (also warning a lot of rambling. bad review, more just for me)

HUB (OUTPOST 3000): once again dread X satisfies even between games with the hub puzzles and Stranglemaw scares, after the alien band the first scare got me the worst out of any game so far. Loved the aesthetic even if very gmod ERROResque at times. (and nice finding the random memes, I assume one per developer? skeleton pussy top tier)

the hub had an error while doing the dumpster puzzle that you have to burn. went back to the door i entered and it was floating out of it's frame so could see the rest of the lobby glitched

hunsvotti: very interesting concept, mommy was scary, but the ending was satisfying and a nice turn on the genre

gallerie:insanely nice artstyle, oozing with style, the movement and zoom function adds so much horror yet genuine good feel. the asmr was insanely
atmospheric, adds to the scares. Diverse gameplay that keeps you thinking yet unknowing, super super good balance of fun and fear

The Book of blood, first one to confuse me. the book and it's symbols stumped me hard, and the overall horror hit hard at first but once u learn u just have to time your clicks right it becomes mostly stress free. fun concept for sure though. The fuse boxes if one is clicked 3 times acts as if all 3 are clicked.

Karao: Settings will glitch out the game if in for too long. the gunplay feels good but by having one i never felt true fear after except for when dying would set me back minutes of time, still overall so fun and engaging

Rotten Stigma: Very fun gameplay, first third person perspective in this collection I have played so a nice fresh feel. Not too scary and an obvious twist (they really wanted you to feel for the monsters that are actively stabbing you). Still really enjoyed it

Spirit Gaurdian: Not scared by "Nanny". puzzles really damn enjoyable. really cute artstyle. love the hands and nanny scare look. needed noise perhaps

We Never left: Wicked idea, sadly played a game just like it "Stories Untold" so guessed ahead of the the premise, but still
hit hard. and the two name names I assume were meant to be FNAF references. the ending was confusing as idk how an
axe did that to a bloke tbh

Vestige: good monster, ADORED mail madness. cool way to look around the enviroment and really worked well to keep suspense. (cat photo best part). make mail madness a stand alone game it is simple but slaps

Resver: really fun almost paper style. really suits the black and white look, petting cat always a good mechanic
oozing with style in it's cutscenes and item pickups. BUT very dissapointing length and not an ounce of scares
so kinda left me dissapointed, may have to return to try to figure out the use of the crowbar and soak in the atmosphere once again

Ludomalica: love the classic "play game alone" kind of ghost stories, knew what kinda scares would be coming cause of
the rules and was not at all scared of the generic black shadow man, loved that ur "head" has psyhics tho and would
roll down the stair if near. love the dice rolling as well.

Beyond the curtain: good audio, the walking is catchy almost. monsters not too scary but their aesthetics and audio were clean.

Interim:liked the mix of real footage in the game world (phantom looked stylish af) and the concept of being killed for ratings the parkour with the wood planks was very
frustrating due to floaty jumping, invisible walls randomly and constantly rotating planks which u can lose easily costing you the attempt, and with the achievement being bugged sadly not super excited to replay
this one. and at the start I skipped a huge portion of the game by merely clicking on the eyeball in the green screen because it is the most visually captivating object in the
beginning area. just a shame due to sloth's experience as a 3d modeller in amazing games.

Ranked (THEY ARE ALL WORTH EXPERIENCING, WOULD NEVER NOT FINISH ONE OF THE DREAD X GAMES, MAKE YOUR OWN OPINION) :
1 Gallerie
2 We Never Left
3 Rotten Stigma
4 Vestige
5 Book Of Blood
6 Karao
7 Spirit Guardian
8 Hunsvotti
9 Ludomalica
10 Beyomd the curtain
11 Resver
12 Interim

(achievements don't pop sometimes and their is many wee bugs but I have no doubt the developers will solve this within a short time of me doing this review. they are always so solid)

DragonMSword
DragonMSword

I have been playing these since the release of the first collection. The series has gone through some highs and lows. I would say overall this entry left me satisfied. Some games do have bugs and achievements are bugged for some of them but I was still able to complete all the games. So here we go for the fifth time.

Overworld: I enjoyed this setting it started off innocently enough and builds the tension and horror as well as giving a backstory to the situation.

HUNSVOTTI: The 2nd half of this one game me the most satisfaction and made the first half worth getting thru to get to it.

Gallerie: The visuals were nice up to a certain point and had to turn off all the visual settings that made it unique. The quick time events and the last section make me wonder how anyone would be able to complete it on the hardest difficulty. It felt like it was dragging on as I neared the end of the game.

The Book of Blood: The start of this one filled me with fear but after the initial shock of the opening it was a fun puzzle game but the main threat in the game was easily defended with spamming which made him more of a nuisance than a fear.

KARAO: The theme song was the best part of this one. Other than that a bare bones fps.

Spirit Guardian: I will call this one a turn based horror game. Do some puzzles and stop and hide with the villain does its sweep of the building than go back to puzzles. I probably took more time than needed to finish it until I figured out the sound before the villain does a sweep.

Rotten Stigma: This one gave me the silent hill vibe. Bare bones third person shooter with some puzzles.

We Never Left: Good atmospheric game that builds the tension and dread as the game goes on with text game segments that were pretty easy to figure out for a novice to text based games like me. The video for completing the game was a great reward.(Connor take another drink of "water" for us.)

Vestige: I hope you like tony hawk but with motor cycles.

Resver: WTF did I play?

Ludomalica: Spooky board game with 3 rules. You have to keep going out of your room to make sure those rules are kept up with. This would probably be more frustrating and dreadful if there wasn't an exploit to negate the only threat.

Beyond the Curtain: Creepy puppets, do I need to say more?

Interim: LSD dream of a game that makes more sense then the other WTF game in this collection. The only problem is an extremely frustrating section that you have to build a path with no control over how the boards are placed and the pick up distance is horrible.

Ranking of the games that I enjoyed best to worst in my opinion:
We Never Left
HUNSVOTTI
Beyond the Curtain
The Overworld
The Book of Blood
Spirit Guardian
Vestige
Rotten Stigma
Ludomalica
KARAO
Interim
Gallerie
Resver

Jiangshi
Jiangshi

This collection really out did itself in my honest opinion, Props to all the Devs on this one! Really enjoyed this one a lot.

$BERT$
$BERT$

things i do on steam:
- wait for dsr and ds3 servers to come back
- wait for elden ring performance fix
- wait for dread delusion(!!!!!)
- play monster hunter
- play dread x collection

Gnurgle
Gnurgle

Book of Blood is the star of the show on this one. It was worth the price of admission here.
We Never Left was a good story and concept but easily forgotten.
Spirit Guardian was playable but very lack luster.
The other 9 games were either sub-mediocre at best or had game breaking bugs so bad that I couldn't get more than a minute into the game and they became unplayable.

No.Live.King
No.Live.King

Always a big fan of the Horror Anthology game thing and all the games in the collection are at least interesting.

We Never Left, Hunsvotti, and Resver were the standouts for me

EL Pollo
EL Pollo

Dread X 5 lacks the quality of previous installments. Assuming the games even work properly as I play, they are disappointing.

Maybe there's a good egg somewhere in here, but I don't really want to keep going regardless.

I'm going to wait for the game to get polished, and then I'll give it another go. Maybe then I'll change my review.

onlyoneswipe
onlyoneswipe

Had a blast playing RESVER. Imma do a vid on each game

https://youtu.be/FF2hsjBf_V4

Skogaholmslimpa
Skogaholmslimpa

Very good collection of indie horror for the most part, couple of the games' achievements bugged on me, only two I couldn't deal with were Interim and Gallerie. Interim because of it's frankly frustrating platforming with really janky crouch-jumping and Gallerie because of the ASMR and atrocious made-up language. Story mode's good, everything else was enjoyable enough. Overall, a much better experience to me than Dread X 3.

A Walrus
A Walrus

top 3 games

3rd gallerie
2nd Hunsvotti
and the winner of best game goes to... We Never Left!

brynleemarie
brynleemarie

I absolutely loved every bit of this experience! I'm still shaking from all of the horror I just experienced, so apologies for any typos I miss. These games have everything you could ever want in a psychological horror experience: the music is eerie and sends chills down my spine, the voice acting in the games that have them are incredible and believable, and the gameplay itself will leave you wide awake at night, scared of the characters that you run into. I'd have to say my favorite experience out of all of them was We Never Left. I'm a sucker for the vintage text story adventures, so I may be a little biased, but there is so much in this specific game that I absolutely enjoyed. The graphics and filters fit the scene, the music is chilling, the voice acting is fantastic, and the STORY is INCREDIBLE. I won't say too much as to not spoil any of it, but if you plan on purchasing this collection, give all of them, but mostly We Never Left a try.

Pyro Jay
Pyro Jay

TL;DR, The other entries are worth getting before this, this is still a good game, with things about it that could have more work done on them.
Here's my thoughts on all the games present.

Hunsvotti - A cool take on the (perhaps poorly labelled) Slender-like style of horror game, being where you grab X amount of objects before getting caught by something. I honestly really liked the way this game did it though, with the way the game looks and the "thing that catches you" being very different from any old monster, short but sweet overall (and also replayable too, could be a fun speedrun game)

Gallerie - A rather long (for a collection like this), pretty, and well thought out game, there's a good amount to this one, even containing a number of egg collectables in each level, not sure what those do as well as a cool behind the scenes bit after beating the game. A very well rounded and pleasant experience. The game's story worked super well with its progression and the games fake language you get to learn and use, which was super neat to experience.

The Book of Blood - This one confused me a bit, while it's definitely a nice looking game, I don't really understand most of it? The game starts off well enough, with a neat little opening, neat idea but MAN, the gameplay falls off in quality. Subtracting a point for jumpscare when the enemy attacks you aside, the book of blood's puzzle fails to explain how to use it well, but its kind of a moot point when you can trial and error it by mashing the button on the cipher you use to solve the book. That of which being further hurt by that sort of just being how you solve it anyway, just by matching it up with the top symbol and pressing the button until it solves that piece. It didn't really feel like a good puzzle, neither is second part of the book where you get the symbol you need and slide the cipher wildly around the page until you find the icon given with solving the first puzzle. Getting caught inside the caravan makes sense... kinda, I think the audio cue doesn't always work which isn't fun but once you go outside, it's kinda just nonsense. The game tells you to crouch to make less noise, and the flashlight indicator tells you that you reveal yourself with it on, right? The problem is, that there's just... nothing there, unless if I missed something there's no sign or signal, visually or with audio as to if the monster shows up. The monster suddenly just shows up, with a jumpscare, of course, trying to stab you. It takes longer for the monster to teleport in and jumpscare you when you're quiet, but theres still no sign as to when it'll happen or how to avoid it, it just does. The ending kinda didn't make sense either, but I don't really wanna spoil it, I guess.

Karao - I liked this one a lot, this game uses light and darkness very well, shooting at an enemy you're struggling to see in the darkness at a low resolution works way better than I'm describing it here, as it's mostly one at a time aiming through a hallway. Not only that, but the games visuals work well with the lighting and is properly spooky. It's got a relatively long length to it too, there's also optional rail switch-things that you grab, kinda like the eggs in Gallerie, I got all of them but I'm not sure where to use them/what they do.

Rotten Stigma - A good silent hill-ish third-person-shooter with a couple problems, but still a good time overall. Pulls off atmosphere well enough, with a nice little story, I'd say its a perfectly good romp but what it didn't need were jumpscares, not totally in your face, but sudden and kinda loud, which is pretty cheap, I think the game wouldve been better if it doubled down on the atmospheric horror. Only other complaint is melee attacks essentially requiring you to get hit.

Spirit Guardian - A very tense little romp through a daycare with some puzzle-y things to do, with good 3D audio helping the effect. The gameplay is mostly solid, if not for the maybe a little too heavy emphasis on waiting in lockers, as well as the egg mechanics being strange. But overall, a perfectly fine entry. I appreciate the viewmodels being hand drawn as well.

We Never Left - I know, I know, everyone's going to say it, I'm going to say it, you're going to say it, "Hey, this is a lot like chapter 1 of Stories Untold." Yes, it absolutely is, I am very confident that was the direct inspiration for this game. It's so similar in fact, that I knew what was going to happen in the game as soon as I saw that it was a text adventure, and I was completely correct, except for the fact that there's a first person segment connected to the text adventure used to progress the story, of which the story is still 90% of the same beats as the formerly mentioned Stories Untold, and of which is connected to a text adventure that isn't as good as Stories Untold, there's only a couple actions that you ever do and it's less responsive, failing to understand your messages if you even put a space at the end of your prompt. I don't want to compare it so much to another game but it REALLY makes it hard not to, it even uses the same camera angle at the computer. But on its own, it's a perfectly fine game, with good visuals, good audio, and alright gameplay, I just wish it didn't have to be a remaking of a game in the same genre, presented in a very similar manner, with a very similar story.

Vestige - A game within a game, and a pretty neat one at that. Using a 360 degree radius point and click movement control scheme, find a half Tony Hawk Pro Skater, half Crazy Taxi game with a rad skeleton on a bike. If only the outside game wasn't just jumpscares. The main horror attraction for this game is just jumpscares you need to turn your vision for, very cheap, very lame. Also I wish doing tricks was a little more responsive, and that the game didn't break on me I suppose.
Kinda weird how this Collection has had 3 games with a notable jumpscare presence this time around, when I count count the total jumpscare-type things in all of the last collections on one hand. And one of those jumpscares is a paperclip.

Resver - A short and sweet travel through a mostly textless game, with very vibrant black and white visuals, this one's a good time. There's no controls other than movement/interacting, so the treat is purely the visuals and story, which the game does well with what its got. The art is always nice with Colorfiction games, can't wait for full Ode to A Moon.

Ludomalica - There's nothing exactly WRONG with this game, it just lacks any and all distinctive elements, I think I'll forget I played this game tomorrow. Click a 6-sided die and maybe the game will tell you to go do something. It feels like all of the soul was sucked out of this game or something, like this is what a husk of a spooky game would be. What's the board game you play? A square with some spaces to land on being question marks. Where do you play it? A sparsely decorated green wall house. What's the horror element? Slight tension with the board game and a dark guy with glowy eyes. The lack of mouse sensitivity settings and graphics options hurt a bit, especially with how the game runs poorly, although there aren't many graphic elements to downsize on.

Beyond the Curtain - A game with a very nice soundscape, this one, with good emphasis on lighting, too. No mouse sensitivity on this one, which would be nice, but no real problems otherwise. Maybe it could've been fleshed out more, but as a atmospheric little experience it succeeds nicely.

Interim - A very surreal, eye-filled, effect-filled journey, this was an enjoyable playthrough, I liked the far-out and unnatural things this game was trying to do, I have no complaints with this one, audio design was also on point and I enjoyed eyesketball.

CONTINUED IN COMMENT

(6)bdog homes
(6)bdog homes

Here are my thoughts for each of the games in this Collection:

Beyond the Curtain: This had potential to be something fascinating, but feels only skin-deep in terms of how it plays out. The scares and sounds do die out quickly, but the abundance of potential scares is what kept me on edge for most of the game. Still glad I played it, but maybe ignore the advice to only run when necessary, as getting lost or misdirected just makes the walk back more tedious.

Gallerie: A very solid game overall, but it plays into the scares too quickly. I liked the more social/relationship styled storytelling that was going on and I wish it played with that more before becoming more of a gallery of frights. Still, I am a sucker for games were random people are just hanging out while you're constantly on your feet running away from scary creatures. I cannot stand the ASMR however, as it makes me want to sneeze (if that makes any sense, it hits that same kind of part of my brain)

HUNSVOTTI: Fun story mix with a "The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker" art style (not sure if that was intentional, but it works perfectly) and camera approach makes for a fun, albeit short, experience. The game ramps up super fast and makes you constantly check your corners, which results in you becoming very aware of the map. I wish we got to see more of the area for better visual story telling, but this was a blast to play and is easily one of the highlights of this Collection. Simply put, it is chaotic and messy in the most perfect of ways.

INTERIM: An art style that seems intentionally ugly mixed with precision movement and controls always leads to a messy outcome, and this game is no exception. I also got the feeling there was more to what was happening that we never get any hint of, so it is hard to say this was a good experience. It also doesn't help that the physics are whack as hell and that you need to be VERY AWARE that the "use" key and "pickup" keys are two different things, or else this will be ten times more frustrating than it may already be if you're not thinking how the developers do.

Karao: Every Dread X Collection has its gem: its perfect little artwork that makes the entire anthology of games worth it to anyone who even thinks of buying one of the Collections (The Toy Shop, and Disparity of the Dead come to mind from previous installments), and this one has Karao. It somehow perfectly blends simple pixelated visuals with a deep and fun story that evolves into something beautiful. Perfect breaks in the action with simple yet good dialogue combined with a great sense of story-telling makes this game... awesome. This is the game that makes these Collections always a blast to play, especially when you don't know its true value until you play it for a 2nd or 3rd time.

Ludomalica: I'm mixed on this game, mainly because it feels like there should be more to it. Not implying it is empty or shallow, but that it doesn't feel resolved in a way that makes sense. It sort of feels like it wants to tell more, but that material was cut out in a healthy way to streamline the process. I don't know, I guess it just seems to be more of a concept instead of an actual game, especially with the crouch and lean abilities feeling underutilized. I'd still recommend it for the build-up, but the payoff can seem a bit static.

Resver: The first game in any Dread X Collection that I think really tried to take visual narrative into a more potent direction. These psychedelic games are always a lot of fun to play, and this one really gives you your money's worth. I can't really say more except it is easy to get lost, but that comes with the territory with games like these. Love it through and through!

Rotten Stigma: Great stuff, especially if you like Silent Hill games. Not trying to make loose connections, this really feels like a Silent Hill game. Not much else to say; its fun. Maybe could have used more endings?

Spirit Guardian: This one is... rough. I get what they were trying to do, but everything from the controls to the game mechanics to the enemy A.I. all feel a bit silly and difficult to work with. Maybe this is something worth playing again when I have a fresh mindset, but I played this through and am satisfied letting it be.

The Book of Blood: Haven't played much of this at the time of writing, and will update this later. Its good for what it has so far, but seems super complicated to me. Maybe I just need to come back to this in a bit.

Vestige: Don't know why this was a point-and-click game, especially since most of the game takes place inside the 'retro game,' which was super fun. Please make more of the motorcycling skeleton, I will pay you real money for more levels like the ones in the game (like, maybe $5 worth, I really loved them).

We Never Left: I've played games like this before, and the visuals/story-telling are always more fun than the actual text-based gameplay. Its alright, I just liked listening to the audio logs and playing the minigame more than the actual game. More of a personal preference instead of a fault.

Overall: This was a serviceable Dread X Collection. The hub world was cool, but I don't like the drip-feed process of accessing new areas. I always enjoyed just getting all the materials and puzzles solved and then running through the games one at a time instead of the back-and-forth of the hub world that Dread X: The Hunt also did. It was cool that it focused more on a monster, though, so I'll give it points for creativity compared to the other hubs which were mostly just escape room-styled puzzles. You should buy this Collection, I'd say most of these are worth playing at least once, and a couple are worth playing more.

xbriannova
xbriannova

Five Dread X Collections on, and I've never regretted buying into the series. I don't know why this game has so few reviews 4 days on, but I think it is deserving of more attention. I think Dread X Collection 5 is pretty strong. With the previous iterations, I didn't complete a few games each. With this one, I've only left one incomplete midway through, though to be fair, there's another, but only because I'm too unskilled a player to complete it and too proud to try easy mode haha. Let's go over the games, shall we?

OUTPOST 3000 (9/10)
This is the frame story for this collection. It deserves the same praise as the frame story of previous collections. It might even have surpassed the others. It's good, and has every right to be one of the many stars of this collection. I love it - the atmosphere, the environmental design, the characters, the comic, the mini-games. It's well thought out. Can't praise it enough.

HUNTSVOTTI (7/10)
Pretty short game. Completed and enjoyed it. Its charm is its uniqueness and different take on survival horror. The ending is surprisingly.

GALLERIE (10/10)
Just this one game is enough to justify buying the entire collection, though there are a few others that are just as good. The production value is pretty close to AAA. The graphics is awesome and unique - something you can only get from indie games that need to innovate to stay ahead. The gameplay is just as good, though it is a challenge and I haven't tried easy mode - this is not a negative :D Gallerie is a must-play. I couldn't complete it because the last chapter was too tough for me. Will probably go back to it one of these days.

THE BOOK OF BLOOD (8/10)
Another star of this collection. It has a Five Nights at Freddy's-lite sort of gameplay... for one part of the gameplay loop. It's more than that, and it sticks pretty well. You have to evade a malevolent entity and solve a mystery at the same time. I didn't complete this one because I couldn't remember where to get a certain important item to end the game. I'll try again one of these days. Maybe I've missed it, but I could sure use an objective screen with important notes because getting scared is counter-productive to remembering fine details.

KARAO (9/10)
Yet another star of this collection. It's a unique take on the FPS genre with a heavy touch of Silent Hill. This one thrives off of its strong atmosphere, amazing sound designing and interesting story. Gameplay is strong too. Gotta say though that the graphic style really impeded the gameplay somewhat. I completed it.

ROTTEN STIGMA (7/10)
Speaking of Silent Hill, this one looks to be heavily inspired by it, though there are huge differences that set it apart. Not as good as the stars of this collection, but it can stand on its own right. I enjoyed it due to the environment and gameplay. It is a game in the 'gamejam' format that is meant to be short, so I guess I can't fault it for being short and having no monster variety. Completed it, but I don't know why, but the achievement system says I didn't... :(

SPIRIT GUARDIAN (5/10)
This one is somewhat weak, and the only reason why I was able to complete it is because it is short. The enemy AI is terrible. I could be standing right next to the enemy and she wouldn't notice me. The stealth gameplay is rendered moot by this. I like the puzzles though. Although weak, it's still worth a shot. A collection can be defined by its weakest entries, and as far as being one of the weaker ones, it is still pretty good, which speaks to the value and quality of the overall collection.

WE NEVER LEFT (7/10)
This one here is a masterpiece (lol you'll understand if you play the game) of atmosphere and environment. It's not the first of its kind, but it does well to honour similar games that came before it. It came close to being one of the stars of this collection, but it is still good in its own right. Completed it.

VESTIGE (7/10)
Like many others in this collection, this game thrives off nostalgia. I like the meta-gameplay. The story is not new and unique, but it is good enough. I genuinely feel sad for the characters in the story. Completed it.

RESVER (6/10)
Possibly the shortest entry of them all. It has next to no gameplay, but it makes up for its shortcomings (pun unintended) with its amazing art style and implied story. I like it, but it feels as though there could be more. Maybe this can be the basis of a much bigger game? Completed it... easily.

LUDOMALICA (8/10)
This is a yet another star of the collection. It centres around a Jumanji-style boardgame in that it makes real what the boardgame wants to happen. I don't know why bigger studios with greater means haven't thought of this yet. This is a gold mine of amazing gameplay. Despite a minor bug, I managed to complete this. There's a door that wouldn't open for me, that I could go through anyway despite appearing closed. Please make a bigger game based on this!

BEYOND THE CURTAIN (8/10)
Yet another star of the collection x2. Here, you have to fend off a Weeping Angel type of enemy. The gameplay is well done, but the atmosphere is amazing. It got me tense and honestly, shook me up despite me being a middle-aged horror veteran. Completed it.

INTERIM (4/10)
Unfortunately, this is one of those games that I quit mid-way. The section where I have to build my way up to escape some blob monster below is just too unpolished and frustrating. It is generally unpolished, perhaps on purpose, and it just doesn't do it for me. Still, the quality is somewhat okay. If I can find it within myself to complete it, I might, but don't bet on it.

FINAL SCORE
Star Games: 6
Good Games: 5
Mediocre Games: 2
95/130
It's definitely worth it. This collection will stay with me for a long time.

Rat Username
Rat Username

I'm only two games in, so far I've played Resver, which was good, but I'd recommend this game solely for We Never Left, which I'm amazed is made for a game jam.

Conner, what the fuck can you do with more time with a standalone experience? That was actually phenomenal

corinnaallan
corinnaallan

Just played through We Never Left out of this collection and WOW! What a great game! Absolutely loved the pixelated art style and the voice acting and story were top notch! Here's my gameplay of it in case anyone wants to check it out! https://youtu.be/rSZbeDINWGU

Syridian
Syridian

I've enjoyed all of the Dread Collections so far, and this is no exception.

However, did just want to mention that there's one game on here, named "We Never Left" which couldn't have been a more shameless ripoff of the first level of"Stories Untold" if it tried. (That one with the text adventure game)

So yeah, solid collection, except for the borderline plagiarism of Fyregames.

duckenheimer
duckenheimer

OUTPOST 3000, THE PLACE WHERE YOUR PARTY IS OUT OF THIS WORLD

KXCMatt
KXCMatt

The variety of styles of horror are cool, and each game gives a different approach to horror and aesthetics with each game. I hope the Dread X Collection horror series will continue to have more installments in the future.

sudden_foot_loss
sudden_foot_loss

Hunsvotti – The collection starts off strong with Hunsvotti - an interesting short PS1 style game set in 19th century Finland during a festival. You play a cowardly child being bullied by the other children. You have to avoid them or things will get slowly gets darker as you become more and more stressed. Reminded me of Midsommer and hopefully it's not too much of a spoiler to say its also channelling the film Carrie a bit. Good music, good atmosphere. Really solid start.

Gallerie – The longest and perhaps the most interesting out of all of these. This is a genuinely unnerving pure psychedelic nightmare horror tale set in a fascinating universe where the natural and supernatural overlap. Gameplay consists of monster avoidance, a button sequence pressing quick time event under pressure and note reading. Another major element to this is the translation game. This game has its own language which you have to translate in order to talk to this bizzare giant being. It’s a great idea and utterly unique, though once translated the responses are fairly nonsensical. Get this collection for this one game alone though, it’s incredibly memorable and I’ll be looking into the other games this guy has made now.

Book of the dead- Not too original this one, its set in a tiny theme park where a guy is stalking you. You’re supposed to figure out the puzzle with this book while having to go and reset breaker switches around the park. If you make too much noise the guy appears and tries to stab you, but you can get out of the quick time event by just spamming your clicks, you're not punished at all for clicking outside of the zone. You end up just sprinting around everywhere cause if he appears you can get out of losing health very easily. All seems kinda pointless, Pretty unimpressed, couldn’t finish it.

Karao – This is a really fantastic retro horror piece with thick atmosphere and excellent music. You’re at a karaoke bar and get trapped outside and very strange things start to happen. There's a story to uncover and shooting to do. It’s a very straightforward mechanic though and not very challenging. I love this thing though and implore anyone to try it. That song has been stuck in my head for days too. Mature and consistent game.

Spirit Guardian – A very straightforward horror puzzle thing set in a nursery school. Some good puzzle ideas but the monster isn’t scary and it honestly just bored the hell out of me. Again I couldn’t finish it.

Rotten stigma is about a cop trying to find his daughter at the school where she went missing. It’s a competent enough title technically with some basic puzzles to solve and shooting to do, though the pixel graphics is very, very clearly an intentional choice to mask the poor unity graphics they’re running with, certainly not designed with that art style in mind like some of the previous titles. It’s trying to channel some Silent Hill or Resident Evil but its not challenging in any way. Terrible ending too, gunshot, fade to black, urgh... Very mild reaction from this one.

We Never Left – a very slow paced game about finding out what happened to a game designer by looking around his apartment. You listen to tapes and solve a couple puzzles but mostly you’re working through a text adventure he created. Good voice acting, verges on boring often though, some of the tapes you have to listen to were sending me to sleep. The idea of playing a text adventure from the perspective of a killer who seems to be in the house you’re playing the game in is a cool, kinda meta idea though and I do respect some of the choices this game makes. It actually comes out of the pixel art overlay sometimes, revealing its just a plug in effect. It's set in the 80’s so it makes sense but can hinder gameplay at times. like when you're trying to read the numbers on the keypad and everything pixelates at a distance. A mature title though, which is more than I can say for...

Vestige – this is a Myst style clickabout title set in the most vanilla house ever built. Its similar to the previous title In that it concerns someone playing a haunted game within the game. Here its a PS1 style skeleton riding a motorbike thing. Its sort of charming in its way, has a dark creepy pasta edge to it, but that’s about all I can say for the positive in this one, its very amateurish and not very original. There's a ghost that'll pop up and you have to look away from it, but Its just more annoying than anything, makes you roll your eyes rather than jump. The skeleton game controls terribly and can be very frustrating too. Frustration and boredom were the two overriding emotions with this one, not good.

Resver – now this ones interesting. Its got a unique monotone artstyle, almost comic book like in its shading and during the cutscenes. Cartoony but I love its whole look, you can tell its made by an real artist with a vision. You are off to go find your friends at a new club that’s opened up in town. Very much inspired by the drugged up atmosphere you might find at such a place. Little too abstract for its own good and not much of story. Short too, but certainly worth trying.

Ludomalica – This is a simple and amateurish one again, feels like it was made by a teenager. You're playing a board game and have to keep getting up and turning the lights off with a monster about. Starts off tense but the monster isn’t scary and it can frustratingly phase through doors. Also the peak button is hilariously useless. Simple enough and reasonably effective but that’s all I can say for it, not great.

Beyond the curtain – you play a kid who falls asleep during a puppet show and wakes up alone. Its appropriately nightmarish and simple enough. Creative in its way but doesn’t have much content to offer. Its effective enough but quite repetitive especially with its simplistic environments. Its short and still manages to verge on boring several times, especially if you die and have to retredd the same areas over again. Could be better. By the way, It must be quite easy to program enemies that stop moving when you look at them in unity, this is the second game to have it...

Interim – this last one starts off promising, with amusing life action moments but very quickly descends into a world of utter psychedelic nonsense without any ideas to really ground it. Some of the other games here are set in a psychedelic world and I liked them well enough but I cant quite put my finger on what it is here that makes me feel so frustrated, bordering on furious with this title. To make these kinds of games work there needs to be a simplicity of art direction and internal consistency within the gameworld. A story at the base of it all to ground you. The set up it gives you before you play seems fair enough, then it immediately falls to having nonsense for nonsense’s sake.I simply cant defend it on any level. Just clutter for your eyes, often the clutter is eyes, actually. Add to that a constant feeling of ‘what am I supposed to be doing’ and its no fun. It makes you do a bridge building puzzle where you have to move these planks but theres no mechanic for manipulating them and even just picking them up is awkward and inconsistent. I was just done at this point, no more, sorry mate, I cant do it.

And that’s all of them. This collection was really interesting, they go from fascinatingly elegant art to fascinatingly awful crap. Its just great to get into the minds of these indie game developers though, the auteur ones at least. Some of these people are artists at the top of their game who know their limitations and know how to deliver an experience, but some come across like teenagers who are only just learning the ropes. Either way this was a great experience to blast through and I cant wait to check out the back catalogue of this dread collection, as well as check out some of these individual creators. Buy it, try them all and see what you think. There’s a couple which would justify the price on their own.

Azalus
Azalus

While not the strongest entry in the Dread X Collection series, Dread X Collection 5 still has quite a few winners. The overall theme this time is "entertainment."

Outpost 3000: As has been the case since the second entry, the game selection area is full of puzzles that must be solved to unlock each game; this time at a popular pizzeria/children's casino playplace a la Chuck E. Cheese's. None of the puzzles are truly difficult, but the Stranglemaw roaming around in some sections can get some cheap kills in due to a lack of collision detection it has on some of the walls. There are also two maze/maze-like sections. It's fine for what it is, though. Unfortunately, the story of 2, 3, and The Hunt feels tacked onto a completely different plot.

HUNSVOTTI: You are the most hated person in your small village, and this year's midsummer festival is in full swing. Your father, who also hates you, tells you to throw seven flowers into the well to see your true love. You do this while trying to avoid all the bullies around you. It's simple, but the artstyle is neat, and the game doesn't overstay it's welcome. I played this one first, so it gave a promising start to my journey.

Gallerie: Here's where those hopes were dashed, though. In this one, people have been disappearing at a local museum, so you go to investigate and find out what's going on. The atmosphere fits the alien aesthetic of Outpost 3000, and the notes and audio guide are a nice touch; however, the only gameplay I have encountered so far is a mix of walking simulator, red light green light, and quick time events. I say "so far" because I have been softlocked during both playthroughs at the same spot probably very close to the end of the first section. Unfortunately, that means this is my least favorite game solely because I can't actually finish it. I will update my review once this bug is squashed, and I can actually finish it.

The Book of Blood: I probably enjoyed this one more than I should have considering a few things, but this helped ease my worries about the rest of the game. You're the last one to leave at a carnival, but you have some tasks to take care of first. Oh. Also, some insane clown demon is after you thanks to a book in your lost and found. At least he isn't a juggalo! (Got em!) It seems your only course of action is to solve the puzzles within the book before he kills you, but he keeps turning the lights off. The puzzle is really simple once you follow the first example, the stealth is wonky (I seemed to attract the demon no matter how quiet I tried to be) and stretches things out due to how slow you're supposed to go, and the demon isn't that difficult to deal with if he catches you because you can click like crazy during the QTE with no consequences as long as you get the clicks in before he stabs you. Even then, I heard if he kills you, you just respawn at your booth, so that could be used as a shortcut. Don't quote me on that, though. Anyway, I liked the few characters present, and the, well, dread of needing to leave the booth added to my enjoyment, so it was worth it. One last kudos for being a game that finally has a good reason that your flashlight battery doesn't last long.

Karao: A karaoke-themed game this time. Well, kind of. You start at a karaoke bar but almost immediately get thrown into a sprawling alleyway where you find some music players that may or may not be karaoke machines. This one does overstay its welcome a little. The enemies pretty much always hit you if you don't know they're there and you stay in their line of sight for just a second too long, and the save spots can be in really weird places, such as right before a section that involves waiting for spotlights to go in the correct places. I also collected all of the secret items only to end up not seeing the secret unlocked because I didn't know to place them somewhere at the end. Not my favorite, but not that bad, either.

Rotten Stigma: This one is very loosely entertainment-based. Kids have gone missing at a sports center (sports are entertainment), including your daughter. You solve simple puzzle, see a few jump scares, and clumsily fight some monsters. I'm pretty neutral with this one as it's pretty short. Pro tip, though: Spinning your scroll wheel up doesn't let you select the rusty pipe. Always scroll down for it.

Spirit Guardian: I really liked the art style in this one. I'm not sure what your character's motivation for going into the daycare is but the game itself is fairly simple: do a few puzzles and play some childish games with ghost children while avoiding the evil ghost nanny. Nothing much more to say here other than I had fun with it.

We Never Left: Ooh! This one is my favorite by far! The atmosphere, the story, the gameplay; I loved it all! I don't want to spoil this one.

Vestige: I think I softlocked this one at the end the first time I played through, but I'm not sure. The plot for this one is your parents are on vacation, so you're house sitting for them and playing one of your old games while doing so. There's only one problem: your dead friend is haunting you and keeps interrupting your game. Rude! The beginning is tedious, especially if you're not used to the really weird way of navigating the house. It also is very jump scare heavy because every time your character blinks (yes, that's a thing), there's a chance that the ghost will appear, so you have to look away or he'll kill you, I guess? Whether or not I actually softlocked it or just couldn't find the right spot to click the first time I played, I'm glad I had to go through it again because I ended up enjoying it a lot more despite the cheap jump scare tactic. The game within the game does look and feel like a cruddy old PS1 game a kid would play like crazy and has a neat plot idea. Finally, the ending is surprisingly heartwarming.

Resver: There's a rave that reopened, and your friends want you to go with them. This is the true "Walking Simulator" of the collection. There isn't much to it other than walking from one point to another while things happen, but the artstyle is unique, and I'd like to see it in another game. Worth it for that art alone. Also, you can pet your cat.

Ludomalica: You're a kid that's home alone, so you finally get to play your disappeared grandfather's cursed board game. More like... BORED game, amirite? Seriously, though. I don't know why the kid in this would want to play it other than because he was told not to. There's no appeal to it. Anyway, that's enough of me complaining about a fictional child's cruddy taste in entertainment. Overall, it's okay, but the first time a certain rule stops being crossed off, it starts to lose its novelty quickly.

Beyond the Curtain: You're a kid in this one, too. During a marionette puppet show that's all mumbles, you fall asleep, only to wake up to find everyone has left, and the only way out is *gasp* BEYOND THE CURTAIN! (See what they did there?) It's basically another walking simulator that has some red light green light in it. Also, the ending is it was all a dream... or was it?!. I might have enjoyed this if it had been shorter.

Interim: This is the last one I played. You're an assistant on some weird television show who wants to be a star, but your boss sucks. Things get weird quickly, though. I don't know what to say about it. The only real damning things about it are the repetitive music at the beginning that I turned off (hopefully I didn't miss some good tracks later on) and an awkward section in which you need to try to move boards in place. Truly an actual example of "This would be way easier in real life."

Overall, Dread X Collection 5 has more hits than misses, and even then, the misses come pretty close to the target. Now to wait for 6.

Bororm
Bororm

Very nice collection at a great price! The launcher beats embarrassing childhood memories of my own birthday party in similar place, no need to make monsters of memories myself this time around as there's plenty of spooks up front.

Kindahuge
Kindahuge

Lots of variety and spooky fun as always. Love these!

The Fright-0-Meter Test
The Fright-0-M…

Dread X Collection 5 - Check Out Our Scariest Steam Picks + Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYYVVkLen7A

Perhaps not achieving the heights of past entries in the Dread X series, this fifth installment horror anthology offers a chillingly refreshing yet hit-and-miss mix of spook-infested tales.

Despite some performance issues and a few forgettable entries, the sheer volume and variety on offer, ranging from a sinister Scandinavian-style Folklorish horror to a surreal supernatural museum tour simulator, will provide a terrifying treat to savor for discerning fans of indie horror.

Segaface
Segaface

It might contain a couple of the best games in this series but the rest range from mediocre to abysmal. On top of that the main game containing them is by far the worst in the series, even the original being as barebones as a mirror game select screen was more enjoyable.

That said the few good games in it We Never Left, Rotten Stigma, Karao, and Resver were outstanding. We Never Left easily being one of the best short horror games I've seen in a long time and Resver being one of the visually coolest games I've seen in years.

nobody
nobody

Suffering through a lot of technical issues that make a lot of this unplayable: Low framerates on the main menu game, falling through the map a lot after the first loading screen on RESVER... that said, the game's been out for only a couple of days, I'll come back and check if things are running more smoothly in a few weeks or so and update this review accordingly.

Coasting
Coasting

In my eyes i think all the games this collection looked great visual wise, but when it came to the game play for most of them it was just boring to me. I love the DreadX collection but this is the worst one so far in my opinion, but i still enjoyed it and had fun with the game i did find interesting.

n3dd
n3dd

With all respect to the developers, this is the worst collection out of all the Dread X collections. The great games are overshadowed by the mediocrity of the other games - honestly I'm really surprised this is even up for sale due to how blatantly mediocre some of the games are. Don't get me wrong, though. Some devs really shone their talent for this collection, including Darkstone Digital and Matt Reeves, as well the dev for the hub. The mentioned devs' games are absolutely amazing and engaging. But seeing a game like Interim in this collection left a really bitter taste in my mouth. It's just surprising to me that the showcases include games that are just astonishing bad. Hopefully the curators or devs can catch up from this blunder because overall I really wish I didn't spend my money on this.

BoJustBo
BoJustBo

Outpost 3000: The wraparound game made by Chistopher Yabsley (of Pigsaw and The Fruit in DXC: The Hunt, fame) and Kira (of Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion and Lost in Vivo fame, as well as the wraparound game in DXC 3.) Very fun, some light puzzles and mini-games are involved but mainly it's about exploring this old sci-fi themed arcade megaplex akin to what we see in FNaF Security Breach although on a smaller scale and a different design style. Everything feels very authentic. There's also a comicbook involved that as you collect the pages for it you learn how this all connects to the wraparound stories of the previous two collections.

Hunsvotti: A folk horror collectathon with rising threats as you collect more of the required items. Quite fun, very Nordic in its themes, while it takes place in Finland I recognize a lot of the traditions in it from here in Sweden too. It has one section where the gameplay is completely different and without spoiling anything I found it very satisfying.

Beyond the Curtain: Atmosphere out the wazoo but a little light on gameplay with a fair bit more than half of it being a walking simulator with no interactions. While I have yet to see the theme of marionettes executed in this fashion before, having "dolls" with the Weeping Angel style AI feels a bit overdone.

Karao: Interesting but somewhat confusing story. The gameplay is pretty nice although one or two checkpoint feel a bit too far back from where you die. (seems to have been fixed in a patch since I played it though.) Some areas of the game use darkness very effectively.

Gallerie: Neat concept for a game with the translation mechanics to communicate with an alien being. Very striking visuals as well... but the whispered yet loud narration with all that lip smacking and switching the sounds from one ear to the next made it almost unplayable, I had to shut off the sound completely to not rage quit. I'm sure not everyone will have this reaction, but for me it really struck a nerve. In the "behind the scenes" part of the menu that you unlock by beating the game the creator talks about the importance of audio... too bad the audio he choose made me play it without any audio at all. =P
(It appears that they added the ability to turn off the 3D audio for the narrator in recent a patch but you can't silence him so the complain still stands.)

Interim: A narrator in the style of The Twilight Zone and a game world and progression that seems inspired by dreams. The narrator is a filmed actor as a high definition 2D sprite while everything else is in full 3D. These are all things I like but the game has a few big flaws. One of which is the physics based puzzles being really tricky with the physics of items you carry being kinda out of control, if you bump an item into something it might start spinning out of control and be really hard to place down correctly. The other flaw is something that I don't see ever being changed is the level design. Several areas are big and open, but you are meant to play them as if they were linear, everything around a very specific path is just decoration that you can walk around and get a closer look at which just distracts you from your actual goal in the area. There's never really a point where you have to go look for something to unlock a path, the paths are always open to you other than some points where you have to build the path yourself with previously mentioned physics puzzles.

The Book of Blood: Ending aside, I really enjoyed this game. It combines aspects of FNaF's style of gameplay where you are confined to one small location and try to complete puzzle heavy tasks while always checking if something is sneaking up on you like some paranoid cuckoo, with a first person stealth horror game where you have to venture out of your little hideyhole to turn sabotaged generators back on while paying attention both to how visible you are and how much noise you make. It turned out to be a great combination of gameplay styles.

Rotten Stigma: Classic style survival horror with over the shoulder style perspective. Not too bad, although a little plain compared to a lot of the games in the collection, and it's quite short.
The sound of the enemies is kinda messed up so you don't know really which direction they are coming from.

Resver: Like with all of Colorfiction's games this sure is an experience with visuals I've never seen before in another game. I was confused the whole way through except maybe for the ending. Colorfiction never holds the players hand like a Hollywood movie or AAA game would, and I like that.

Spirit Guardian: A haunted school where you have to scavenge hunt for keys and items and complete puzzles while a ghostly stalker enemy roams the halls. Nothing groundbreaking but it works and the art has a very nice hand drawn look to it. Also there's one part where you have to carry eggs in a spoon and not drop it, I was surprised to see this in a horror game =D

The following three games are all about some sort of game within a game affecting reality. Interesting convergence of ideas, but executed very differently in each of the three games.

Vestige: A point and click game featuring a haunted ps1 game about doing motocross tricks while delivering mail from the beyond. To be fair, neither of these two game genres are among my favorites, but I still thought they both worked pretty well and the combination of them was fairly neat. There is however a blinking mechanic where every so often you blink whether you want to or not. This is active at all times, long before it becomes part of the gameplay and it is really annoying visually.

We Never Left: You go to the home of an old friend that hasn't been seen for a while to find out where he's been, turns out he's been working on an interactive text adventure game (it takes place in the early 80s) to prove to the world that he's not mad but an artistic genius... you be the judge about that. Both well written and well made. There is an easy mode of sorts that highlights key items during the exploration part of the game but I thought the game was just right in its difficulty without it. The one thing I gotta question a bit is that the game uses modern high-resolution graphics with a pixel filter on top, seems a bit pointless, especially when the pixel filter is removed for the parts where you play the game(s) within the game, not just the game screen but also for the surroundings that you previously saw pixelated.

Ludomalica: You are home alone and you dig out an old cursed board game, what could go wrong... The game has a P.T. flair to it with each time your pawn lands on a question mark on the board something happens in the house that you have to go and fix.
I had a bug happen that kept me from finishing it and I had to wait for a bugfix to be released before I replayed the game. While I think the concept of the game is neat and the gameplay while you're out in the house fixing things ain't too bad, during the replay of it I got to thinking about how flawed the design and execution of the board game theme was.
It's a game about rolling dice, yet there's basically no randomness in the game. You either land on an empty square and nothing happens, or you land on a question mark and something happens, and the things always happen in the same order no matter what question mark you land on. Reaching the end of the board does nothing at all, you just loop until you've landed on enough question marks to trigger all events, so even having the squares without question marks only works to waste your time. The only random thing in the game is an enemy during some of the events that seem to have a randomized patrolling path.

In conclusion, like all anthologies this one is a mixed bag. But as with all Dread X collections the good parts more than make up for the bad ones, and this one doesn't include any complete clunkers so that's also nice.

Vycer
Vycer

i came, saw skussy and came again.

KingusGornLordChefPenglaFengars
KingusGornLord…

Yet another fun horror anthology from the DreadXP folks.

haveabbit
haveabbit

Yet another good collection of short horror games. Each game had interesting concepts that were fun to experience. Can't say much else without giving away too much about each game.

aus741
aus741

It's more hit or miss than The Hunt & too many of the games rely on pixel filters for some semblance of art direction but, Dread X IIIII still manages to deliver the scares the creativity that we've come to expect. It's overall quality is reflected in the new hub Outpost 3000, interesting, tells s good story, but falls short when compared to what came before. Grab it & be ready to be scared

Dice-Crow
Dice-Crow

EVERY SINGLE DREAD X COLLECTION IS TOP TIER AND THIS ONE IS NO DIFFERENT, EXCEPT OF COURSE FOR THE COLLECTIONS EACH BEING A UNIQUE AND BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE WITH A WHOLE HOST OF COOL THINGS TO SEE AND DO!!!!!!!
IDK THAT THIS IS ALL CAPS ITS SO GOOD!

Now Loading
Now Loading

A really nice bundle of indie games that really punches above its own weight given the price and length.
Also was a lot of fun to play around my own birthday :)
As far as the individual games go, there's better reviews elsewhere, but I have to say Gallerie, Kareo, and Resver were super cool and on their own already well worth the full price of the game.

Technical Issues/Warnings before you play:
-Switching from the games back to Outpost 3000 sometimes took up to a minute of staring at a gray screen (clicking and wiggling the mouse didn't seem to help)
-If you have a mouse set to around 1500 dpi like I do, most games did not have a sensitivity setting low enough for it and I had to close the game and lower my dpi outside of the game.
-(saddest of all) I was unable to play Interim. For some reason the key bind for "walk forward" would always unbind when launching the game. Tried relaunching (both from in game and from outpost 3000 again), and also playing with the bindings to no luck. Also no idea if its on purpose but selecting "quit to menu" in that game wouldn't quit you to the menu so much as plays a 30 second clip and teleport you to a new area. From there I could actually quit to menu

radu
radu

Pretty lackluster collection compared to the previous ones. The most notable games are: Beyond the Curtain and HUNSVOTTI. Everything else just didn't click with me or I found it to be cheap horror. Also worth mentioning are the loading times between the games and the hub, which are insanely long and sometimes end up being completely stuck. It's faster to alt+f4 and restart the game.

Witch
Witch

I always play and 100% complete all of the dread x collections. I'm such a huge fan of the overarching story in the series. This collections story isn't as in depth as the hunt or dead x collection 2, However, I still very much enjoyed this collection. I hope to see more!

Rekyua
Rekyua

The new best in the series!

Love the atmosphere of the story world hub and the unfolding story. The gradual build up with the scares are great and I'm glad to see there is a failure trigger with them now! The little puzzles are nice as well and I only got stuck on the one for the safe as I was looking at the wrong place on one of the photos. The games this time around have a heavy feeling of dread to them aside from 1-2 which is always the trend.

Notes on all games below:

Ludomalica while being simple was quite intimidating at first as hiding games my weakness but I pressed on and eventually it turned more to "how much longer is this" but the eventual end is fun and I enjoyed it.

We Never Left was really fun, I liked the story and the narration and the creep factor that follows you as you play it, the little mini-game kept me entertained longer than it should have too as I tried to get past 3 stars.

Beyond the Curtain was pretty creepy, great visuals and sounds made my anxiety build until the last chase which changed to frustration as a mishap can cause you to start over well before the sequence begins.

Book of Blood was a log of fun, I liked the carnival environment and wished there was more to do it in and explore more, the puzzles were a bit to head scratching and I just ended up brute forcing them, the enemy can be cheesed as well so once you see how you can deal with him theres less suspense.

Spirit Guardian is another game which uses mechanics I'm not good at, hiding and avoiding, but its forgiving enough I managed to get through it. I liked the feel of it but its more a story than a scare.

Rotten Stigma is creepy and a kickback to all the horror games on PSX. I had a crash near the end so I had to replay it through it again. The combat is a little frustrating, the melee weapon is almost useless and you can't really avoid most encounters. The ending can be seen coming but it doesn't make it any less somber.

HUNSVOTTI is just weird but a fun weird. I had no idea what I was really doing going into it but after figuring it out it was entertaining, I really liked the quirky music and American McGee feel of it.

Karao, very strange. It was it's moments but I think the gameplay is too janky, the ending it good though, I liked the little story told by the song that we hear at the end, something I didn't really catch as I heard snippets of it throughout the game.

Interim was strange, short and sweet, it ended up being my last game so I appreciate it's brevity in that regard.

Gallerie, I consider this to be the worst, and not because of its looks or story (which is odd). It explains too much at the beginning, makes me expect more from it's in-game language, but worst of all is the ASMR aspect of it. Trying to hear a whisper explain things to me was just annoying, I ended up skipping through all the curators dialog after the first couple chats. Less is more with these games and this just has too much it tries to do.

And lasty, the MVP of this collection for me is Vestige. What a surprise this was, I really didn't expect much and my expectations LOWERED after the click here to move environment but once the scare comes out along with the minigame you play through with the reveal for its story? Best overall.

I'm glad I caught this collection sooner, the last one slipped past me and I didn't find it till much later but I'm thrilled to see these collections every year and I look forward to seeing more of these in the future!

Sykomancer
Sykomancer

If you've been playing the collections up until now, you know what to expect, and I'm still loving these!

Cream-of-Plenty
Cream-of-Plenty

SUMMARY: As with previous Dread X Collections, Dread X Collection 5 is the result of the efforts of a dozen+ different developers--including a mix of gems and duds. However, this is the first installment where I genuinely feel that the duds outweigh the gems and, when coupled with one of the series' more mediocre hubs, it was a generally boring and often frustrating experience that I can't honestly recommend. My advice? Go play the other ones.

Personally, KARAO, HUNSVOTTI, ROTTEN STIGMA, and WE NEVER LEFT are some of the standout titles in this batch.

On the other hand, issues with the other titles included:

- GALLERIE: An interesting idea (the implementation of the alien language was particularly novel) that's never particularly enjoyable to play, and goes on for longer than necessary--well after the point where you will have figured out what's happening; this is probably my favorite of the titles I have disliked, if that makes any sense--but I was glad to be done with it.

- VESTIGE: A point-and-click with a 360-degree camera set in (what appears to be) a sterile "modern home" Unity asset where every generic room is the same color AND it's at night, resulting in a gamespace that's immediately obnoxious to navigate. Once you get to the actual gameplay, the clunkiness undermines the horror/seriousness in a way that I don't think is entirely deliberate. Honestly, Dread X's "SUMMER NIGHT" succeeded a lot better at doing a similar thing.

- SPIRIT GUARDIAN: The equivalent of white noise. Dull gameplay, and you'll likely figure out the gist of the story in the first 8-10 minutes. I had a number of issues with the game, but there's a particular section toward the end where you have to use a spoon to (carefully) carry eggs to a "shrine"; if you move too fast (or look too fast) the egg falls. The issue is that you'll likely drop the egg if you go into a crouch (I guess because of the sudden camera movement), and you can also drop the egg if you don't move slower than keyboard walk speed--I suspect this was designed for a gamepad with analog input? The button to interact with the flashlight is frequently unresponsive, which might be a similar issue. The nicest thing I can say is that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

- LUDOMALICA: A very simple concept driven into the ground for far too long. Roll the dice! Turn the lights back off! Close the doors again! Now there are more doors, more lights! Now there is a maze, do it again! Now you are dead!

- BEHIND THE CURTAIN: Awful--possibly the worst of the batch, personally. I don't understand the opening advice "take your time, only run when necessary" when a majority of the game is needlessly massive, endless stretches of copy-pasted areas and you walk at a snail's pace (running's not much better, plus it beats a hilariously loud stomping SFX into your ears).

Lynxer
Lynxer

The Horror themed collection of videogames is back with a vengeance!
Like previous entries, this is excellent if you don't have time to invest on a 6-10 hour long campaign, and you don't mind the ever changing gameplay between the 12 games. As in previous times, the Launcher itself is quite a treat, with tons of scary secret and fun minigames to unlock the games of the collection, and the addition of the comic that relates to the underlying story.

HUNSVOTTI - a 20 min. long game about picking flowers during a midsommar-like festival. Both scary and fun once you get the hang of it. 8.5/10
Gallery - A trippy and somewhat disorienting first person puzzle game, with tense chase scenes and quick time puzzle solving. 7/10
The Book of Blood - Definitely the best of the collection, in which you need to solve a puzzle within a book while being chased by a masked magician eager to stab you and drink your blood. VERY scary, with a clever (yet somewhat misleading) puzzle and stealth sections. 9/10
Karao - What begins at a Karaoke station turns into a run for survival in the depths of an underground station. Quite simple, with a couple of scary moments, and filled with basic retro graphics. Quite enjoyable. 7/10
Rotten Stigma - A cop looking for his missing daugther ends up uncovering a mutant conspiracy. Albeit quite short, it's a nice homage to Resident Evil games. 8/10
Spirit Guardian - Your character goes to investigate a closed down daycare, where the spirit of an evil nanny roams... Quite short, a couple puzzles here and there, somewhat glitchy, and not that scary. 6/10
We never left - An adventure game with both 3D exploration and text-adventure based narrative. Neat and short game, although somewhat frustrating by the lack of contextual option verbs in the text game. 7.5/10
Vestige - A night alone at home turns into a freaky supernatural experience when an old game is played. The game-within-the-game is quite fun, although the graphics look definitely dated. 7/10
Resver - A walk-sim featuring weird visuals and freaky events going on. It's quite short, albeit the weakest entry in the collection. 4/10
Ludomalika - After the dissapearence of his grandfather, a young teen plays a forbidden game where he has to obey the rules in order to keep on playing. It was scary moments and chase scenes, and decent visuals. 7/10
Beyond the Curtain - A kid gets lost backstage in a teather featuring eerie wooden dolls. Definitely the second best of the collection, it's quite scary and keeps you on edge until the end. 8.5/10
Interim - Another game with bizarre art, a decent visual horor experience, but there's not much to it. 5/10

With all said, The DreadX Collection 5 was very satisfying to play, because it's the proof that both veterans and newcomers can develop surprising and engaging horror games that otherwise would fly past the radar if they were released on their own. Keep up the good work, and I'll definitely be looking forward for the next issue!

Emet
Emet

Overall I recommend this collection. There wasn't any game that blew me away like in past Dread X collections, but there also weren't any games that felt like I was feeding into my masochistic tendencies to finish.

Rotten Stigma, Hunsvotti, Karao, and We Never Left were pretty great overall.

Vestige wasn't bad, but I think it might've been better if it had committed to either the horror game in the house, or the racing/taxi game. The racing/taxi game was actually really fun, and it was a bit sad that it was so short.

Gallerie was pretty interesting, but I feel I would've liked to see more of the world. It has some pretty cool worldbuilding going on, and we got to see only a very small portion of that. Not to mention the minigame you had to play to charge the batteries or open doors got tiring after a bit.

If you have played the other collections and liked them, you should like this one. If you haven't played the other collections, I would give them a try. 2, 3, and The Hunt have some solid games in them.

pee
pee

Unfortunately this is kind of a miss for the dread x collections, As much as I enjoyed the previous 4 games, this one is full of walking sims and concepts that fail to grab your attention.
but really i am just mad that there was no chips tips 2

Mr. Jackolantern
Mr. Jackolantern

I love the Dread X Collection series, but this one is really quite bland. I haven't finished the completely yet, so perhaps there are some hidden gems I haven't yet found, but the games I played really lacked conceptually and gameplaywise. Interim is so unfinished and is such a boring and overused concept that I think it might be the second worst game in the whole series (behind Another Late Night from the second collection).

The main launcher currently has a wierd problem that it just goes black after you turn on a different game, so you have to restart the collection after every game you finished.

We Never Left is probably the best game in the collection I played. It also just doesn't work on high graphics setting (I have a very good PC).

Overall, maybe just go replay Dread X Collection 2, 3 and The Hunt instead of this one.

nemu
nemu

im a really big fan of the dread x series, ive been looking forward to each one sequentially and ive loved streaming them to a small circle of friends and seeing what fun ideas were made in time. this is the first time i have ever been directly bored by a pack. all but two were walking simulators with absolutely no gripping concepts or visual intrigue often obstructed by a low resolution filter no more 'retro' than cataracts.

many of these are nominees for the worst of the franchise and i sincerily hope in the future they curate these harder. there is no 'insurmountable expectations' i just want basic gameplay to break up the walking sims.

genuinely id stay away from this and instead pick up the earlier entries, you wont miss anything by not playing this one. dread x 3 remains a personal favorite if you need a quick suggestion.

Floored Apple
Floored Apple

This game is easily the weakest of the collections. A very bland and unfinished looking hub with a collection of walking simulator games.
There's a couple gems in this collection, such as We Never Left and Rotten Stigma. Unfortunately though, the majority of them are forgettable, bland, and frustrating to play through with environments that are copy and pasted.

I cant even begin to describe how boring and tedious Ludomalica is.

Magikarp-Killer
Magikarp-Killer

Despite this collection having some of the weakest games in the series so far,it's got some real gems in it (Gallerie,Rotten Sigma,We Never Left,HUNSVOTTI,Book of Blood),that make it well worth buying. I look forward to the next one if it happens (maybe go back to having a theme like collection 3 and 4 had)!

Kurikuo
Kurikuo

The worst collection so far.

While most of the games present were pretty alright, The Gallerie being my favorite, they fall quite short in length compared to the other collections.
The hub world feels like it got copied straight out of FNAF Security Breach, the puzzles are all extremely easy, like it was made for a child audience.
What I disliked most is the fact that you cant explore at all anymore, progress in the hub is bound to the games, play one, and a new door is unlocked. The transition time from exiting a game and going back to the hub world is insane, I thought at first the game crashed on me.

The only thing I really liked in this collection, is that you arent forced to finish the games anymore for them to count to completion, and the storytelling through the comic was cool.

Herrscher Cvnt
Herrscher Cvnt

Listen, It's a new Dread X collection. Even if the games on this one turned out to all be ass, it shouldn't really matter. The pure demo disc from the 90s feeling that you get from buying a game that's actually 12 games in a trenchcoat is unsurpassed and genuinely a good selling point on it's own.

As for the overall quality of the games on this one? I'd say it edges out the previous entries by a pretty wide margin, mainly because on average, even the weakest games are still pretty enjoyable and have something to call their own.

I won't give detailed reviews for all of the games because I think it's more fun to experience this blind, but I will say that out of the games on the collection, try to keep "Book of Blood" and "We never left" towards the tail end, since they are easily the best in the collection for vastly different reasons. As for weakest, probably "Gallerie". That's not to say it was bad, it was just a lot weaker than the other games.

Hawk Zombie
Hawk Zombie

My birthdays were never like this.

I dunno if that's good or bad, but these games are *chef's kiss*

Fell
Fell

The collection feels more hit and miss this time around, with only a few standout games. We're missing some heavy hitter indie horror devs that have appeared in previous collections, like David & John Szymanski, TorpleDook, KIRA, etc. The launcher game also feels like a huge step back from The Hunt and the castle in DX3 which both had interesting story elements and atmosphere. DX5 is, to me, the least interesting from a story, gameplay mechanic, and atmosphere standpoint in the series. The worst aspect of it, though, is that I experienced game breaking bugs in 3 of the games that rendered them unplayable. Overall this collection feels rushed in more ways than one, and it makes it hard to recommend. I hope they spend a little more time polishing up the next collection if they keep releasing these, and I hope they do. I really enjoy short, anthologized horror experiences.

tonydanzafromtv
tonydanzafromtv

These collections are great. Even if a game doesn't quite jive, there are so many unique games on offer here. Great job!

I Don't Wanna Be Around Anymore
I Don't Wanna …

Still working my way through the games, but so far I’m not as drawn in as the previous games, which I discovered a week before The Hunt came out and tore through the catalogue. This one is unfortunately marred by bugs that keep me from smoothly playing through, especially returning to the hub which always, ALWAYS freezes the game forcing me to alt-f4 out and restart. Here are my recommendations for each game I’ve played through, which I will update as a go through each one.

Huntsvotti: A silly game, would have fit in the 3rd collection well. Short and not very challenging, but with a charming enough story and art style, with some Midsommar vibes (always a good thing in my opinion)

Gallerie: I will preface this one by saying I absolutely love its vibe and story, but the gameplay itself is pretty barebones. Maybe it gets more involved later on, but unfortunately the game froze because I went through some dialogue too fast and haven’t had the drive to return to it. Wish it had checkpoints that kept between game sessions which would have prevented my lost progress.

The Book of Blood: Really did not enjoy this one. Carnival aesthetics are much too played out in horror for my taste, and the game itself feels like an even more stripped down Slender the 8 Pages. The main enemy just randomly appears from thin air to attack you if you move too fast and the map is tiny. The book puzzle feels very disconnected from the main gameplay loop, as does the ‘lock the doors’ mechanic. Lacks cohesion and pulls itself in too many directions to be interesting.

Karao: A solid entry all around. Stylish visuals, creative level design, a twisted story all held together with a catchy tune that becomes more chilling the farther in you get. There’s an extraordinary bit that uses rag doll physics and blood decals in one of the coolest sequences in any Dread X collection so far.

Rotten Stigma: Seems decent enough, however this one also froze on me after I found two of the coins and tried interacting with the ‘moon hole’ in the swimming pool with no way to exit the dialogue prompt. Gameplay is okay even though I do not like how long the melee animation takes, visuals are serviceable but there are some odd translations or grammatical errors that confused me and made progressing more complicated than needed. Might go back and finish this one.

Spirit Guardian: after Rotten Stigma froze on me, I tried to just move on hoping to be wowed by the next game. Unfortunately, this is one of the weakest entries in any collection to far. A strange and disjointed cartoon artstyle, a laughable villain that will randomly come through the walls and insta KO you, and frustratingly unresponsive flashlight controls made me give up mere minutes into this one. Don’t think I will end up finishing this one. Writing the first draft of this review immediately after playing Rotten Stigma plus this one and the combined crash/poor design of these two have left a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, even though I have yet to play the last half of the games, I would still recommend this one for the price. I do wish it was themed better like the 3rd and 4th collections, as this one feels a little all over the place tonally. Like any horror anthology, you just gotta be able to tolerate the bad or average sections until you find the great ones.

Ryoga
Ryoga

This one is one stop on the wrong road, please test the games more next time.

Okay the dev responde quickly and are aware of the issues, they are working to fix them. Im glad they heard me out

SlateMinded
SlateMinded

I love these collections and the wide array of games and developers that are showcased every time! This on the downside has some of the more buggy instances of games, but with a little patience I was able to complete every game in the collection, and nothing made it frustrating to the point of not wanting to continue. Also We Never Left is pure genius and I want that fleshed out for a bigger game!

Rooftop
Rooftop

It's a Dread X Game baby.
I am a fan of short horror anthologies whether it be movies, books, or games. The Dread X Collection Series is phenomenal. There are some games that are misses here and there but overall, very worth the money they ask.

"Rat"
"Rat"

Another collection of decent horror snippets, this particular collection is worth for the Gallerie alone to be honest.

RA|» Trimto
RA|» Trimto

If you haven't played this yet, you neeeed too! It's an amazing time.

SiriusChico
SiriusChico

Another amazing indie horror collection. It's always to pleasure to experience this tornado of fresh ideas in the stale pool of horror games. Overall, this collection may be the best one yet - highly recommended.

Jon
Jon

Had a few bugs in a couple of the games but that's to be expected with a indie collection like this. Overall this is a great collection worthy of the Dread X name and fingers crossed this isn't the last one because I have loved all of them so far!

KiviPää
KiviPää

12 really good and spooky games by cool people for only around 8€ (that makes one game to be about 0,60€)
absolutely worth the price

Static10101
Static10101

I bought this to support Roope Tammerin and his game for the compilation called HUNSVOTTI. It was strange and decent, as I have come to expect from Roope's works. Not great, not the worst thing I have ever played either. Then I played the next game, called Gallerie... which actually could qualify as the worst thing I have ever played. While it had an appealing art style (compared to the other titles in this set), the narration was abysmal. I read in the developer's notes that they were going for some kind of ASMR thing and they utterly failed. In fact, now I am wondering if they even understand what ASMR means. I have done several audio guided tours of museums and never once was the narrator whispering like a child trying to keep their parent from catching them up well past their bedtime. It wasn't pleasant, it wasn't creepy, and honestly I would have preferred simple text over audio. I am from a generation of pretty bad voice acting in games and I have never, ever heard anything this bad before. I could even try to look past the terrible game-play mechanics (sloppy quick-time events while being chased down hallways) and the lazy level design (the same 6 paintings used to fill a museum, often even RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER), but what is the point when all of the in-between is even worse?

I tend to finish a game before I review it. I don't think I will be doing that in this case. Nor will I be buying the previous Dread installments or any future ones. Be warned. If you look at this and say to yourself "there is no way that that could be any good" then you should follow your intuition. It is not. They took a bar that was already set far too low and just decided to get rid of it entirely for this collection. These collections are counterproductive to struggling developers if you are going to allow garbage like this in them. All you are doing is proving to everyone WHY these people are not successful. I'm sorry, Roope, but you are better than this. I would distance myself from such projects.

PoopSquare
PoopSquare

I actually expected this to be not that great, partially because the theme wasn't my thing and I didn't know a lot of the devs, but this is actually one of the best Dread X Collections imo. You guys did an amazing job! I will say that the hub world was a little underwhelming. I wish it was a bit more of a Dread X 2 type hub with fun puzzles and such, but I'm totally cool with a little experimentation. I think that MOST of these games are really memorable in some way, which is awesome. I couldn't have predicted the direction that any of these games went, and I really love that. Really fun collection!

GoldenPJay
GoldenPJay

This collection is an absolutely amazing steal!! All games fit similar but varying themes, with unique and interesting styles and gameplay from one another. My absolute favorites are Honsvotti, Karao, We Never Left, and Vestige!! All the other ones are still worth a play or two and are really good!!

Strattissimo
Strattissimo

ANOTHER GREAT GAME! INTERESTING TOUCH WITH THE COMIC STORY TELLING VS THE VERBAL. THANKS FOR THE FRIGHTS!

teddy
teddy

like always the games are a mixed bag, some good, some meh, some bad. not the best bundle, but not bad. the overworld might be the best one though, outpost 3000 is pretty great since it's kind of a horror game more than just a do some puzzles, unlock more game zone, also it's pizza planet.

hunsvotti is the best one in the bunch though, quite fun overall.

shoutouts to the one game that says you should stream it or play in front of an audience that just kills your framerate in obs and your bitrate as well, lol. quit it very fast, but there's 11 more games to play.

Barristan
Barristan

This was a bit of a tricky review to make because I'm leaning between marking it Yes or No. On one hand, this is definitely the weakest entry in the Dread X collection to date, both technically and simply on that quality of the games. However, I still enjoyed it overall. But there definitely needs to be more care on the bug side of things, with both the launcher/hub area and the games exhibiting far more issues then I've seen in the past games, with at least two occasions I had to restart a game(Thankfully the games are better about having a checkpoint system this time around. ) My personal highlights would be Hunsvotti, Karao, and We Never Left (Although I found its attempt at mimicing text adventures rather weak.) Otherwise, a lot of entries, instead of the promising snippet of creativity the Dread X collections are meant to be, felt like tedium or a poor recreation of existing horror games( The Book of Blood for example, while very impressive visually, might as well be ten other indie games you can find on Steam about flipping switches while a QTE monster hunts you.) While the hub zone had some neat stuff, I found myself preferring the more open ended zones of the second and third collections. I think my final statement would be "Yes, but get it on sale", with the hope that DreadXP will correct the buggy areas, and for future entries (If any?) will take into consideration the reception of the fifth collection.

FEEBL_REPTILIAN
FEEBL_REPTILIAN

If you've played Dread X you'll love it- if not; why haven't you?

Goldrust
Goldrust

Ok I just played the game for 9 hours, beat all the games and got all the achievements. I would give the whole game a solid 8.5 out of 10.

Main Arcade area: 8.5/10 Lots of fun in the arcade area getting all the presents, I liked the atmosphere.
Ludomalica: 7/10 Run around a small house, playing a board game, turning lights off and avoiding a demon monster. Cool idea wish it was longer.
Resver: 3/10 Worst game in the bunch. Psychedelic black and white trip through a sewer and rave party. Makes no sense.
We Never Left: 8/10 One of the best in the collection, play a horror text adventure while exploring a house.
Interim: 3/10 Tied with the worst in the bunch. Climb up some wooden boards in a movie set. Makes no sense.
Beyond The Curtain: 9.5/10 I really enjoyed this one. Its atmospheric, get chased by puppets that stop when you look at them.
The Book of Blood: 10/10 Cant ask for more in a little horror game. Hidden Gem, original design. Solve puzzles in an ancient Demon Book at a carnival at night, and avoid the demon running around.
KARAO: 8/10 Little FPS in back alleys and subway stations, creepy, surprise ending
Spirit Gaurdian: 7/10 Weird little game that makes no sense but was enjoyable. First person puzzle game with stealth enemy.
Hunsvotti: 8/10 Another weird little game where you have to find and throw 7 flowers down a well in a forest while avoiding cult members. More fun that it had any right to be. Silly game.
Gallerie: 9/10 Super strange but what a trip. Lovecraftian adventure in an art museum where you avoid aliens and solve puzzles to talk to them. The atmosphere is super super trippy great art direction.
Vestige: 8.5/10 Cool game where you play an older 1980s dirt bike game, but with a twist.
Rotten Stigma: 8.5/10 Basically a tiny little 1 hour long Silent Hill throwback.

GeekKing
GeekKing

"a collective that live, breathe, and bleed experimental horror"

"these genre-bending, bizarre scream-fests have become quite important to me"

"wonderfully outlandish expressionism"

7/10

Full review at https://darkzero.co.uk/game-reviews/dread-x-collection-5-pc-review/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P0ihjymg-E&list=PLCw43T4HpduiArou7ypBS…

Hex: Pocket Sand
Hex: Pocket Sand

All in all, a pretty solid batch of twelve games with only a few 'meh's and one stinker. Even the lobby of the game is a game in itself, with its own puzzles and spooks to entertain you between games. For $10 you get 10 hours worth of content and scares, and let me tell you, that's a pretty good deal.

I won't go super in-depth on each individual game to let people see them for themselves, but I will list them from my personal most liked to least liked and give a small snippet of my thoughts. Bear in mind that I'd say everything above the bottom four is at least a 7-8/10, and just keeps climbing higher from there up to some 9s and 10s.

Vestige (A bit short, and moving around the house can be clunky, but beyond those it's definitely an absolute gem. A monster that's absolutely horrifying on its first encounter and keeps you on your toes the rest of the game. A tragic yet heartwarming story that's a breath of fresh air after a slew of horror games with bad endings. And, best of all... a game within the game where you drive a motorcycle as a skeleton. Beautiful, and also pretty fun.)

We Never Left (The one major flaw of this is that it's pretty graphically intensive for some reason, making its FPS tank unless you decrease the quality to its lowest setting. Once you can actually PLAY the game, though, it's a unique and haunting experience that provides a constant sense of growing dread as you quickly realize how helpless you are to stop what's to come. Very dark, taking a blatant peek into the bleakest of minds, and an all-around satisfying experience. Great voice acting too, with well detailed story for you to find.)

Rotten Stigma (Basically, a short and simple Silent Hill. If you like Silent Hill (or just 3rd person horror games in general), you'll like this. There's not much more to say than that. It takes something that already works, and surprise, it still works. Fun game, interesting background, and I guess the only thing I can knock on is the ending being rather predictable.)

KARAO (A very well-crafted horror game that has you shooting your way through a constant slew of enemies trying to get to the bottom of everything that's going on. Very polished, well designed, and even has some collectibles + a silly easter egg to find, but I will say it has one big downside: Its story makes absolutely no sense and has tons of plot holes. Might be a bit of a letdown if you pick apart the lore, but beyond that it's very solid.)

Hunsvotti (Very short, and basically just a gathering minigame, but it does so much right. It's daytime horror done right, where you're constantly on guard even though it's bright out, the artstyle is cheery, and everything around you is more an obstacle than a threat... but things can quickly become horrifying if you mess up too many times. There's lots of fascinating bits of lore sprinkled throughout for you to find as well. Once you've completed the minigame, you get one last dark sequence that ties everything together and provides a bit of catharsis. Great artstyle, great attention to detail, great game.)

The Book of Blood (Some very unique and interesting mechanics once you understand them... the downside is they're VERY confusing and hard to understand. Even after looking at a guide it took a bit of work to finally figure out what it wanted me to do. Despite that, though, it's definitely a fun game with mechanics that keep you on edge as you work to piece together the puzzle. And when you do figure it out, you feel like a boss. My only other gripe beyond its confusing gameplay is that as far as I can tell, the enemy isn't physically in the game and just seems to appear at random? The game seems to try and promote stealth but I've had the guy spawn right in front of me out of nowhere. It's thankfully not too punishing if you get caught, but there's not much point to being stealthy at all. With some tweaks, this would definitely be way higher up the list.)

Gallerie (It high points are high, and its low points are low. An all around interesting and sometimes beautiful game that I enjoyed playing, but it definitely has its flaws. Lots of repeated assets, especially noticeable since you're in an art gallery and you're seeing the same paintings dozens of times... I get it, they had limited time to work with, but surely there was ways to make it less noticeable. The translation segments are a bit of a mess. The museum curator talks to you with some really horrible ASMR which, while you can turn it off, makes me wonder why they added it in the first place - why would a tour guide be whispering in your ear? They throw in aliens at the very beginning to the backstory but they end up almost completely irrelevant. There's also little point to going for the many collectibles because they're numerous, very well hidden, and nigh impossible to grab while you're being chased. I know I've listed a lot of complaints, but like I said, its high points are high. Some breathtaking environments, a fascinating, horrifying, and somewhat metaphorical explanation for what's going on, and the monsters are scary and persistent without being too obnoxious. There's some weird QTEs as you play, which also don't make sense, but they're great at adding tension since enemies will still be sneaking up on you as you do them... and you can hear them coming. It's also the longest game in the collection with 3 parts.)

Ludomalica (The graphics are a bit simple, and don't expect any major twists in the gameplay, but don't be fooled. There's a couple good subtle scares while you play as well as a constant sense of 'oh god what's going to happen next'. Probably the most mundane of the collection, but 'mundane' doesn't mean 'bad'. In fact, it's rather good, just a bit simple.)

Hub area (Basically a collection of exploration, challenges, and puzzles in between every game. There's a couple puzzles that are hard to figure out, but aside from those, it's a solid experience that helps break up the pace a little between games. Using presents to unlock games was fun, the comic you collect pages for along the way is neat... my only major gripe is that the ending is super, SUPER unsatisfying. Not too grand, since it's more of an intermission than an actual game, but it's a very good intermission.)

Interim (Super trippy and bizarre, but ultimately not too satisfying. The climbing section is clunky and most of the time you're better off ignoring what it wants you to do and just jumping along thin props. Not bad, but also not too memorable either... though you'll definitely remember the hilarious line of being sacrificed for the ratings.)

Spirit Guardian (I didn't dislike it, but it definitely had a lot of room for improvement. A bit nonsensical, like why do you have to balance an egg on a spoon instead of just carrying it... and why are you even carrying eggs in the first place? The monster is hard to see coming, but when it gets you it's basically just a slap on the wrist. I'd say the only reason this is above the entry below is that it's paced a LOT better.)

Beyond The Curtain (A neat idea and aesthetic, but ultimately dragged down by excessively long periods of walking with nothing happening through poorly designed environments. Once you go through the slog that is the intro and a couple other tedious segments, though, it picks up a bit. There's a threat that requires you to keep looking behind you whilst simultaneously watching out for threats ahead that I don't really think worked well, but it's at least interesting. Plus, it's definitely got the most horrific ending of the collection.)

Resver (The only one I outright disliked. Interesting aesthetic, but the only thing memorable about it is it lets you pet cats. The story makes no sense, the visuals freak out in completely bizarre ways that I can't tell are intentional or not, and it basically boils down to a super unsatisfying walking simulator. You know it's a problem when you're GLAD the game is short.)

Saint
Saint

Every single game is very good so far!!!

Dikkun
Dikkun

Solid work as always, making me try some games that I would never go out of my usual ones just to see how "Outpost 3000" ends.
As expected, there are some titles in here that are downright amazing (I'm looking at you, Karao, We Never Left, Gallerie and Book of Blood), some average and a few that do not feel fun to play, but are more of a chore, still, there are more good games than bad ones, so the purchase of this collection is justifiable.

CLARPUS
CLARPUS

12 spooky games with a cool launcher that progresses as you work through the collection

TheFezMan
TheFezMan

This is an okay Dread X Collection. It's nothing special or outstanding really. The only outstanding games for me were Rotten Stigma, Karao, Vestige and Resver. There are a lot of ok or acceptable games in here. Like Book of Blood, that game would have been cool, if it relied more on the puzzle aspect while keeping the doors locked. The only real bad games in the collection are 'Beyond the Curtain' and 'Gallerie'. The first one blew all it's atmosphere towards the end and has a dumb story and the second one is way to long and was unfun to play. Overall i would recommend Dread X 2, 3 and The Hunt for new time players. These have way better, scarier and more outstanding games than this collection. It's ok but nothing new or special. Still better than the first one.

SuS
SuS

This Dread X Collection was pretty good but had some games that felt way too long and stale. Still would recommend. (Also add a FPS limiter to the games please).

heavencode
heavencode

there are a few entries here that are a chore to suffer through but considering i feel gallerie alone is worth the asking price with the addition of a few others being noticeably awesome or just drenched in vibes it's definitely worth it.

NyxBot V6.6
NyxBot V6.6

[No spoilers review of each game] Nothing can parallel the experience of playing a Dread X Collection for the first time. Not every contribution is going to be to your taste, but the experience of trying 12 wildly different games is very fun, and it's great for finding indie creators whose work you like.

In order of how much I liked them:

GALLERIE: I was genuinely blown away by this game. The story was very compelling, although the writing was occasionally a little inconsistent. I was mostly impressed with the extremely unique flair the game had throughout: there was a strange twist on quicktime events, there was a constructed language that you had to learn to converse with a character, and two different types of enemy with completely different mechanics to avoid them.

Overall, Gallerie easily stood out as one of the best games in the collection.

WE NEVER LEFT: This game makes heavy use of a text adventure mechanic, so it's no surprise that the writing throughout is phenomenal. You collect cassette tapes and read journals to learn more about your brother, and the art is really good. It's very hard to talk about this game without spoilers, so just know it's rad af and that you should Finish the game.

LUDOMALICA: This was the first game I played, and I'm glad it was. The concept itself is very clever, and the execution is almost perfect. I didn't find the villain scary, but the game managed to scare me anyway through it's clever use of tension. The game did a few things I didn't expect. While there is little story to speak of, what is there serves the game very well. I didn't expect the ending to have as big a pay off as it did. Highly recommend.

KARAO: The gameplay was exceptional, and the artstyle itself beautiful. The narrative felt slightly gratuitous to me, however, and you should probably avoid the game if you're disturbed by torture.

HUNSVOTTI: Quite short, but very good. Extremely satisfying ending.

BEYOND THE CURTAIN: Exceptionally beautiful game that did a lot with its concept: the concept itself could be seen as trite, but it offers a very unique twist on it. This game is only so low because I failed the final sequence before the end of game 3 times, and each time it started me a 1 minute walk away from the area I needed to be to attempt again.

RESVER: More of a visual experience than a horror game, but I really liked how it looked. Didn't really understand the narrative, but I think it's more about the visuals with this game.

VESTIGE: Vestige is a tony hawk style game with a point and click narrative frame. The game cuts between jump scares and a wacky retro game. This is genius, as it constantly lulls you into a sense of security to make each jump scare catch you off guard. In this sense it is *too* effective. This is one for people who like to be genuinely scared, because for me, it was an oppressive experience. I've yet to finish it, and I don't know if I will.

ROTTEN STIGMA: Exceptionally short game, but I really enjoyed it. Feels like an early silent hill or resident evil game. The writing, art, and gameplay were all wonderful, but I don't feel it had enough time to spin it's wheels.

INTERIM: Not sure how to feel about this one. Failed to really grip me, and I'm uncertain of what it was trying to say.

SPIRIT GUARDIAN: Not my cup of tea at all.

In summary: really good collection - very much worth the money.

julian.ratzenboeck
julian.ratzenboeck

~ DIFFICULTY ~

▢ No Difficulty
▢ Easy
🟩Normal
▢Hard
▢ Impossible

~ PLAYER BASE ~

▢ Everyone
▢ Kids
▢ Mature
🟩 Casual Players
▢ Tryhards
▢ Pro Players

~ GRAPHICS ~

▢ What Is This?
▢ Acceptable
▢Good
🟩 Great
▢Beautiful
▢ Masterpiece

~ SOUND/MUSIC ~ (Using Headphones)

▢ Bad
▢ Nothing Special
▢ Good
🟩Great
▢ Beautiful
▢ I´m Gonna Cry

~ STORY ~

▢ This Game Has No Story
▢ Like Playing "Candy Crush" For The Story
▢ It´s Alright
🟩 Well Written
▢ Epic Story
▢Thinking About It, When I Sleep

~ PRICE ~

▢ Free
🟩 Underpriced
▢ Perfect Price
▢ Could Be Cheaper
▢ Overpriced

~ LENGTH ~

▢Very Short (0-2 Hours)
🟩Short (2-20 Hours)
▢ Average (20-50 Hours)
▢ Long (50-200 Hours)
▢ VERY Long (200-... Hours)
▢ Multiplayer/Neverending

~ FUN ~

▢ I´d Rather Watch Grass Grow
▢ Hard To Enjoy
▢ Repetitive
▢ It´s Okay
▢ Fun To Be Had For Sure
🟩The Kind Of Fun You Will Remember
▢ Life Changing

~ WORTH BUYING ~

▢ No
▢ Wait For A Sale
▢ Yes
🟩 I Can´t Recommend It Enough

~ FINAL SCORE ~
9.4/10

TrevorMason117
TrevorMason117

After going through all of the Dread X games, you'd expect the quality of these collections to be well done after four games of experience. With Dread X Collection 5, it turns out to be quite the opposite.

Dread X Collection 5 is my least favorite game of the entire series and it's the franchise equivalent to V/H/S: Viral. Only three out of the thirteen games I liked and only two I thought where great. No disrespect to the developers here since Dread XP is pretty cool and I wish them the best, yet I can't lie when I'm talking about how I felt about these games.

Outpost 3000: A massive downgrade from 2, 3, The Hunt. Aside from the comic explaining everything that happened before the game starts, the game itself barely has a story other than getting the presents to the table to play the games. Compare that to 2, 3, and The Hunt where you didn't have to read supplementary material to understand what was going on. There were cinematics, full voice acting (which this one barely has), and a story to tell without having to go into outside material. The comic story is pretty cool, but the end of it provides more questions than answers. Given how this is might be the final game in the series based on reading the dev responses to Steam reviews, I doubt those questions will ever be answered. Outpost 3000 could've been cool if it was a linear cinematic game, but you're a kid inside of a haunted place doing pointless and boring puzzles to get to the next game. Such a disappointment.

Hunsvotti: This game was bizarre. Weird, unpleasant, and not very fun even when you're the aggressor in the end. Didn't like that one at all.

Gallerie: Like tradition, I didn't finish this one and the ASMR is the very reason why. Unlike Hellblade where the audio was immersive for the game's horror, I found the ASMR audio in here to be cringe educing to the point where I turned the game off after seeing that the game itself is nonsensical. No thank you.

The Book of Blood: Another game I didn't finish and I'll probably have to update the review since I'll have to play it with a buddy given how it's another puzzle game. Update: After I ended up not finishing this one, I watched one of my friends play it at his house and honestly, this one was beyond pointless. You're in a festival at night and you're stalked while solving a boring puzzle, then the game ends. Nothing special in there, it's as surface level as it comes.

Karao: This game was really cool. I loved the use of lights in the game, the gore was great, the level design was fun, the music was fun, everything was fun here. I liked this one a lot.

Rotten Stigma: The game that disappointed me the most. With a game trying to be Silent Hill, it only really uses the gameplay structure of those games without carrying over what made those games special and it's their narratives, symbolism, and soundtracks. Rotten Stigma has none of it and the game ends on a whimper. The template was there, but it needed much more.

Spirit Guardian: This one was also bizarre and felt random. You're in a daycare doing random tasks for ghosts while an elderly ghost who clips through the wall stalks you. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. The art style is cool, but that's about all it has going for it.

We Never Left: The best game in the collection and one of the best Dread X games ever made. For a game made by a collage student, it was beyond impressive and it felt like a Hollywood production given the game's all-star cast. Jonah Scott (Beastars, Dying Light 2) was an absolute show-stealer and showed what the Dread X series is capable of if it had a full big star cast. The game itself is also an intense thriller similar to Hush and features some of the best music the Dread X series has ever featured. Absolute masterpiece of a game.

Vestige: This one was alright, though it freaked me out a bit for sure. Cool game, but it would've been better with more content.

Resver: A visual marvel of a game. Despite this game not being scary at all, I loved the visuals this game had and if you like games like Tetris Effect, you'd enjoy this one too.

Ludomalica: Another disappointing game. The concept is cool and it starts off strong, but it grows boring and repetitive as it goes on.

Beyond the Curtain: The definition of a walking simulator. I honestly have nothing to say about this one aside from it being boring.

Interim: The worst game of the collection. Nonsensical, pretentious, and the physics and platforming were horrible.

And that's it. The end of the series and only three games I liked in this final game. I've liked nearly every Dread X Collection and even with 3, there was something to like a lot in 3. In Dread X 5, however, there's not much to enjoy in this one which why I don't recommend it. Super sad that this one didn't end up being the swansong the series needed, but at least we had some great games along the way with the series so there's that.

seanymilk
seanymilk

Easily the weakest Dread X Collection, in my opinion.
Really not impressed with the selection of games this time around.

+ The hub as usual was incredible and fun to explore
+ Only 2 of the games I actually enjoyed (Rotten Stigma and Gallerie)

- Poorly optimized games (2 games had very bad lag on my high end computer)
- 2 games crashed and I couldn't get them to work at all
- Most of the games are forgettable, or too convoluted to remember
- 2 of the games had very annoying or frustrating sections / gameplay mechanics
- Some achievements were bugged at launch (now corrected)

I would only recommend this to die hard fans of the Dread X Collection series.

Dolkins - Master of Disguise
Dolkins - Mast…

This one is kind of a disaster! Outpost 3000 is pretty bad, the comic seems pretty convoluted. How do you screw up just a kid alone and scared in a Chuck E Cheese? The puzzles there range from decent to really truly terrible and it just sort of looks ugly and cheap. Can't seem to decide whether it's about a voice stealing monster, aliens, a serial killer and a smushy monster that looks like an amalgamation of U-3 from Resident Evil 4 and Leapers from Dead Space.

I'd say I actively enjoyed Gallerie, We Never Left, Karao and Vestige the whole time I played them. Rotten Stigma was good but I wish it felt a bit more substantial. Beyond The Curtain has some really interesting stuff going on but it gets pretty repetitive. Everything other than that I wasn't super impressed with. Feels like the overall quality has gone down so far since DreadX2 which only had 2 bad games.

These are ranked from order I most enjoyed to least. (I didn't play Book Of Blood. I got to the book and the central puzzle seemed so nonsensical and obtuse I didn't even bother. Tried to even look at a guide to see what was happening and after reading that it still didn't make sense to me. Maybe it's actually an awesome puzzlebook but having to stop doing the same puzzle I don't understand to go turn on fuse boxes seems like a big waste of time. Charlotte's Exile this ain't)

Karao (Pretty fun, the song was good. Pretty bleak what the game is actually about though. Combat could be hard sometimes when you couldn't see well but never felt unfair. Wish there was a more fun or climactic final fight before the story reveal)

Gallerie (This one is good. The story, the vibe and everything sort of blends together to be really one of a kind. Its got a pretty good length and is just a stand out. The language minigame is pretty cool. Love the ASMR curator, it was really creepy and a cool idea. Third chapter feels a bit rushed however and the QTEs get old)

We never left (Really like this one! Cool vibe and was a lot of fun hearing more of the story. Kinda hoped you could survive somehow but it doesn't seem like it. If i had a complaint I guess I'd say it's a little bit silly compared to how serious it plays out, I saw the developer had never made a horror game before and that makes a lot of sense. Had a few technical issues but other than that it was a blast)

Vestige (Pretty good, I like the split between the motorcycle minigame and the house. The motorcycle game is actually pretty fun. Felt like FNAF mixed with an MX game. Enjoyed this one a lot though.)

Rotten Stigma (Pretty fun while it lasts but it's pretty short, it just kind of ends and the story is complete nonsense. Just made me wish I was playing Silent Hill)

Beyond the curtain (Really cool ideas and some nice attention to detail but can drag a lot in sections. Great sound design and music. The design was also pretty good but gameplay wise it was just a long walking simulator.)

Hunsvotti (Pretty good, really short but there's no need for it to be any longer. Nothing really wowed me but it was really solid.)

Ludomalica (Not sure how I feel about this one. One central idea that's pretty good in theory but in execution isn't fun at all. Some tense moments but it just isn't very good. Once you figure out the gimmick you basically just have to grin and bear it until the end)

Guardian Spirit (Generic outlast or amnesia style game but is fun enough. Basically just completed the assignment and that's it. If I was grading this it would be a D)

Resver (Some people might like this one but it wasn't for me, probably more cutscene than game time and it sort of hinges on weird visuals which I didn't find interesting. Other people might like this more though.)

Interim (Offensively bad, the worst thing ever in a dreadX collection. Almost seems like a parody, it's got bad design, FMV, terrible acting, a pretentious plot that seems to think it "means something" but is actually saying nothing. It's also inexplicably an episode of The Twilight Zone for some reason? The writing is atrocious and nothing happens but walking until you have to do a poorly implemented physics puzzle to escape a giant eye. Almost gave up during that because of how bad it felt but i kept trucking through. Truly a miserable experience and I'm not being hyperbolic when I say it's probably the worst thing I've ever played. There is no value here.)

Sad to see this might be the last DreadX. This one was a misstep but I still feel like this series is uniquely important to horror and helping horror publishers get out there while earning some cash. Really hope they find a way to continue in some capacity.

ANNOYING CROW
ANNOYING CROW

BESIDES THE GAME NOT LIKING BEING ALT TABBED THIS IS AN INTERESTING COLLECTION CAW CAW

YOU HAVE CORNFLAK MONSTER MEME IN THE GAME CAW CAW

YOU HAVE POV CARNY LIFE SIMULATOR CAW CAW

YOU HAVE A WEIRD VERSION OF THE MOVIE MIDSOMMAR CAW CAW. CROW KIND OF TAPPED OUT AFTER THOSE THREE CAW CAW. BUT I'M SURE YOU TO YOU JIMMY, YOU WILL LOVE THIS GAME CAW CAW

DrProfessorGuy
DrProfessorGuy

Weakest entry in the series so far

Eeeaea
Eeeaea

Not the worst, not the best.
The overworld felt like a big step back, but the setting way cool.
The games were, as always, hit or miss.
We Never Left, Book of Blood, Karao, Beyond the Curtain, and Rotten Stigma all stood out and I'd love to see expanded.
For 9.99 if you've played the others in the series and are hungry for more? Buy it.
For 9.99 if you're looking to jump in? Maybe later. Try 2, 3, or The Hunt first.