In terms of indie survival horror games, Holstin is unique in that it straddles two distinct eras. At first glance, Holstin is an atmospheric and richly detailed survival horror game with some stunning pixel art meant to emulate the low-poly visual style of the genre's origins, akin to other recent hallmarks like Signalis or Crow Country. But once players switch gears from exploration and puzzle-solving into combat, Holstin shifts its perspective to a behind-the-shoulder camera a la Resident Evil 4. That mix of early and modern Resident Evil influences via Holstin's clever use of camera angles is arguably its most obvious feature, but it packs plenty more thrills and surprises up its sleeve to stand out as one of the most promising upcoming games in the genre.
Holstin's debut back in 2023 was met with considerable praise thanks to a strong public demo on Steam, but developer Sonka has been relatively quiet since then. As it turns out, the team was busy taking the valuable feedback from that initial demo to polish and iterate on Holstin's design, bringing the title to a state more in line with other modern survival horror classics. Ahead of the game's release later in 2025, The Best War Games went hands-on with a new build of Holstin that showcased a slew of new gameplay tweaks and improvements that, cumulatively, position it as a title old-school survival horror fans can't afford to miss.
Holstin Has Classic Resident Evil Meets Disco Elysium Vibes
Upcoming indie game Holstin looks to blend genres, art styles, and narrative influences to create a stunning horror experience.
Where Holstin Fits Into the Pantheon of Old-School-Inspired Survival Horror Games
The last few years have seen a steady stream of old-school-inspired indie survival horror titles making their debut, from genre-bending sci-fi horror games like Signalis to the more recent cyberpunk-meets-Silent Hill hit Hollowbody. Holstin is just one of several more noteworthy games following this same design ethos, joining other upcoming titles like Phase Zero, Scarlet Lake, Void Martyrs, and many more. But Holstin finds itself in an enviable position by delivering something that seems to have mostly escaped those other titles, which is the ability to embrace modernity rather than adhering to an old-school design philosophy as leverage for the entire experience.
One element that was missing from Holstin's earlier public demo is its story, which is equal parts Disco Elysium and Resident Evil. Players take on the role of protagonist Tomasz, who, after learning of his friend Bartok's disappearance, decides to go on a one-man mission to track him down. Bartok is an investigative journalist by trade, and his recent look into suspected corruption and labor violations at a nearby meat-packing plant seems to have run him afoul of some very unscrupulous individuals. Combined with the game's being set in Poland, Holstin comes out of the gate strong with a story that's equal parts Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Władysław Reymont's The Peasants, but things only get more interesting from there.
Not long after arriving at Bartok's last-known location, Tomasz realizes things are awry when a giant ooze-like substance sprouting tendrils takes hold of the train station and starts driving all the locals insane. We quickly come to learn that this substance, "Plasmodium", is a quasi-sentient human-induced invention that has somehow gotten out of hand, which Tomasz hears first-hand from one of the scientists who worked on the project. What starts as a fact-finding and potential rescue mission for Tomasz to find the missing Bartok quickly shifts into a cautionary tale of scientific endeavor gone horribly wrong, tying in classic Resident Evil influence along with its more literary examinations of corruption, labor rights, and inequality.
While Holstin's initial demo was a promising slice of gameplay that did a great job of showcasing the game's unique visual style and perspective-shifting gameplay, the healthy injection of story into its latest playable slice makes it all the more enjoyable. Including a genuinely compelling story, along with some well-written characters and a setting that feels fleshed out and lived in, creates an equally strong pull for its narrative elements that is all too rare in the genre. All the touchpoints that players would expect to find in an old-school survival horror game are front and center in Holstin — grid-based inventory, searching the environment for items and clues, having to choose between fight or flight in encounters, collecting notes to help solve puzzles — but this latest demo proves that its story is the secret weapon that will help it stand apart from the modern pantheon of similar genre titles.
Perspective-Shifting Gameplay and Manipulating Player Perception are the Heart of Holstin
As welcome as a good story is in a survival horror game, most players come to the genre for its signature gameplay, and it's another front on which Holstin delivers. At the core of Holstin's moment-to-moment action is the camera, which is ultimately used as a diegetic element to immerse players in the on-screen horror. During exploration, Holstin requires players to shift the camera left and right, rotating it on an axis to get different perspectives of Tomasz's surroundings. Similar to the 2008 indie puzzle game Fez, players will routinely stumble upon new clues or items simply by entering a room and freely rotating the camera to explore every possible perspective, which teaches the player a valuable lesson about Holstin and its setting: nothing is ever quite as it seems.
In a move reminiscent of Arkane's Prey, seemingly innocuous objects will sometimes spring to life, and any time the player is stumped on where to go or what to do, exploring a previously visited room from a new angle almost always yields progress. The few townspeople left unaffected by the Plasmodium still seem rather odd and untrustworthy, and Holstin's gameplay feeds into this sense of growing unease and paranoia by constantly suggesting that the player second-guess their surroundings at all times. Throw in regular camera shifts to a fully first-person mode or an overhead third-person perspective, and you have several genuinely unsettling moments in Holstin's latest demo that work overtime to eliminate any sense of familiarity or comfort for longtime survival horror fans.
Searching the environment from every possible angle also yields plenty of pick-ups, which, in true old-school survival horror fashion, can be combined to make restorative items or ammunition. It's worth noting that playing Holstin on the recommended difficulty setting resulted in us always having more than enough healing and ammunition to take on every enemy, and the use of degradable melee weapons adds an element of resource management that might not have been as pronounced otherwise. Melee combat is slightly floaty but powerful enough to get the job done on any downed enemies still crawling toward Tomasz, but it's Holstin's ranged combat that stands out as one of its main draws.
The limitations of the PlayStation hardware made the original Resident Evil trilogy's "Tank" controls necessary to help facilitate its aiming and shooting mechanics, which made the tectonic shift of Resident Evil 4 so profound. Holstin is unique in that, while the majority of its gameplay and narrative elements are firmly rooted in those early PS1 Resident Evil titles, its shooting is fully indebted to Resident Evil 4. Aiming is smooth and precise with the firearms available in the newest Holstin demo, and enemies have conveniently glowing pustules of Plasmodium for Tomasz to aim at. Every encounter in Holstin almost feels like trying to take down one of the Regenerators from Resident Evil 4, avoiding lunges, psychic blasts, and similar sprouting spike attacks while aiming for the obvious weak spots on each enemy. Hit one, and you successfully disarm a foe thanks to an explosion that removes where it was located, whether that is its leg, arm, or head.
What's Changed From the Initial Public Demo
The most obvious improvements from Holstin's initial demo to its latest build are the level of polish that has gone into both the combat and exploration, along with its more developed story beats. Controls in Holstin are smooth whether playing with a controller or with a mouse and keyboard, and the initially-disorienting camera shift from isometric to behind-the-shoulder perspectives quickly becomes second nature after just a few encounters. The few puzzles in the new demo are fairly boilerplate as far as survival horror games go, and being studious about exploring every room visited will see the solutions become obvious sooner rather than later. Fans of the genre know the drill: search for items and clues, decipher those clues, and then use the items — typically a key or some other object — to proceed.
But for as much familiarity as Holstin might seem to offer for old-school survival horror fans, it does a great job of defying those expectations the more you dig into it. Its initial demo was enough to get many players hooked on its camera-shifting combat, but the latest build really starts to get into the beating heart of what stands to make Holstin so special. Ultimately, Holstin's latest demo will leave you wanting more, both in terms of getting to experience more of its unique take on old-school survival horror gameplay and to get answers for its immediately intriguing narrative, which has only made the wait for the eventual full release that much harder.
- Developer(s)
- Sonka
- Publisher(s)
- Sonka
- Engine
- Unity
WHERE TO PLAY
Holstin is currently in development for PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch/Switch 2. The Best War Games was provided a PC code for this preview.