I had no idea what to expect from Bokeh Game Studio's Slitterhead before my preview at PAX West 2024, but I walked away very confused, excited, and slightly worried all at once. You see, Bokeh was founded in 2020, and the founder was none other than Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of franchises like Gravity Rush, Siren, and, more notably, the fog (and monster)- infested series that is Silent Hill.
Slitterhead is the first game to come out of the newly established team, and it's nothing like those games I mentioned. It's a third-person, body-swapping, action-adventure game that takes place in a fictional version of Hong Kong during the '80s. To set things up, you play as this body-less entity named Hyoki that can basically take control of the random NPCs that are hanging out around the city. You can press a button to make Hyoki appear as an orb of light, and then you can move your little ball self to take control of other humans.
Now, there are main characters that you'll meet throughout the story of Slitterhead, but it seems that you'll keep taking control of these ugly-looking city folk (their faces just look really bad and bland, okay?) And engage in battles you'll encounter in the city. How the combat works is that there are always a bunch of "NPCs" on the battlefield, and when a monster or other enemy gets the jump on you or you feel overwhelmed by what's happening, you can switch to another character on the field. There are also bonuses for jumping from body to body, increasing your power for the next couple of attacks.
You use these sort of blood-fueled weapons that dish out pretty basic melee attacks. You can also parry and dodge around. From the few combat experiences I had in the demo, the fighting doesn't appear to be anything groundbreaking or super tactile. It can feel a little clunky at times, and making physical contact with the monsters doesn't feel that satisfying.
However, I have two takeaways about the combat that give me hope for Slitterhead. The first one is the whole body swapping mechanic during combat. When you're getting your butt knocked around by a monster, and you switch to another character and attack the monster from behind and then switch to another player to do the same thing again, it can feel really good and pretty unique for an action game.
As for the other takeaway, the demo ended with a final battle sequence against a terribly disgusting monster that dealt massive damage, but the game put me in control of a character known as Rarity. Slitterhead's Steam description states that Rarities are "specific humans who share high sync with Hyoki." This allows Hyoki to get a massive power boost and perform special techniques that the regular city people do not possess.
The power of my Rarity was basically Wolverine from X-Men. I had razor-sharp claws that could perform swift slashes on the enemy, and boy, it felt a lot more fun than the rest of the combat encounters. There was even a special gauge that charged up, allowing the Rarity to pull off even cooler moves. I don't know how often you'll get to control these Rarities in Slitterhead. Still, there are a couple that the developers are teasing, so it'll be interesting to see how many there actually are, what their attacks look like, and how much they vary from each other.
Since I only played Slitterhead for about 15-20 minutes, I can't say much about the narrative since there wasn't much happening during my session (story-wise). I don't know if this is going to end up turning into a series as iconic as something like Silent Hill, but I did walk away intrigued by Slitterhead. However, it does give me the same feeling I had when I first saw footage of Ghostwire Tokyo: a very much 7/10 type of game that might end up with some sort of cult following down the road.
Slitterhead
- Released
- November 8, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity, Strong Sexual Content
- Developer(s)
- Bokeh Game Studio
- Publisher(s)
- Bokeh Game Studio
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
WHERE TO PLAY
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
