Beholder Complete Edition aims to be both a narrative story, strategy, and simulation title. Control a landlord within a dark and strict future to help your tenants live a happy life or evict them if they disobey the rules. Each choice you make will have grave consequences that will lead to one of numerous endings. Will you be a landlord who is kind and turns a blind eye to lawbreakers or will you rule your apartment complex with an iron fist? Choose your fate in Beholder Complete Edition.

In Beholder Complete Edition, players will need to make every decision count. Run an apartment complex by keeping an eye on the tenants and making sure they obey the strict laws of the land. The government is calling the shots and that means if you fail to deliver them results you’re looking at a dire situation ahead of you. However, each of the tenants in this apartment complex has a life, and as you get to know them, your actions may be influenced by kindness and pity. Maybe instead of ratting them out, you will bribe them to hide their misdeeds or will you turn a blind eye completely to keep them safe and happy? Your choice matters in Beholder Complete Edition and will lead to one of several endings. See where your actions take you as the new landlord in Beholder Complete Edition.

In a dark strict future, Carl—our main protagonist—has just been given an important job by the State. Tasked with watching over tenants in a small apartment complex, Carl must be vigilant. Making Carl’s job easier, the state has given him a powerful drug that will allow him to forgo sleep so he can work at peak performance. Carl must report every infringement possible or suffer the State’s wrath which could endanger his family. However, as Carl will soon learn about his tenants, they too also have families they love and lives they live. Will Carl place his and his family’s lives in danger to save his fellow man?

Back in 2016, a rather unique and clever title released to the PC and mobile platforms called Beholder. Acting as a strategy simulation title of sorts, Beholder had a dark story to tell and clever gameplay mechanics to keep players thinking about every minor action they took. Now, console gamers can try their hand on Beholder in a definitive version called Beholder Complete Edition. Here at Honey’s Anime HQ, we were able to get our hands on Behold Complete Edition and after playing for a while, we have some opinions on it that might influence your purchase. Why not see what we thought of this dystopian themed title in our review of Beholder Complete Edition?

Assuming you are brand new to Beholder, let us begin by describing Beholder Complete Edition. You get two stories in Beholder Complete Edition, one being the main campaign where you play as Carl and a DLC—which is recommended to be played after beating Carl’s tale—called Beholder: Blissful Sleep which acts a prequel of sorts. However, both games function relatively the same. The main idea behind Beholder Complete Edition is to make decisions that keep your apartment complex running smoothly to avoid the State unleashing punishment on your black silhouetted main characters. Beholder Complete Edition totes itself as a game where every choice matters, and this is very true indeed. Though the main question on your mind most likely is how do choices work in Beholder Complete Edition and what is the actual gameplay like?

In Beholder Complete Edition, you’re tasked with following the State’s tough and ever-changing laws by making sure your tenants are obeying every regulation in place. You will watch each apartment from a zoomed-out perspective, find yourself breaking and entering to set up cameras and or search the premise and then write reports to let the State know of your findings. This, in turn, provides you not only money to help keep everything running smoothly in both the apartment complex and your own family’s domain, but also keeps the State from dragging you out and claiming you’re a failure. This is where Beholder Complete Edition shines brightest. You are given freedom to use clever ways to circumvent the State’s ever watchful eye.

Not only could you take bribes from tenants to keep their dark secrets to themselves, but you can also talk to these tenants and learn why they do things and maybe just ignore their wrongdoings. One of the hardest elements to Beholder Complete Edition is making the decision and wondering whether it was the right one. Sure, you may have removed a tenant that seemed against the State, but maybe they were treated so poorly by the State that they decided to begin a revolution and could have been the ones to change the current world. Maybe a family is dealing with massive issues and their illegal actions are actually efforts to help them with crippling debt. Beholder Complete Edition makes you truly feel these characters and their lives and judges you based on your action against the tenants which in turn leads to several endings based on your actions in game.

Graphically, Beholder Complete Edition might look overly simple with it’s black silhouette art style but trained gamers will see there’s a lot of detail outside of the characters. Each apartment has a design to it that mirrors the tenants within and that makes this bleak looking title actually look quite good. The same can be said of the eerie narration and music which keeps you feeling the world of Beholder Complete Edition and truly immersed in it. That’s why we actually love the art and music in Beholder Complete Edition, despite the simplistic nature. Now, with all the positives being said about Beholder Complete Edition, let us discuss some of the issues we had with it.

Beholder Complete Edition isn’t a tough game by design per-say, and even has an in-game reference guide via the phone in your apartment room, but even with that, it will still require a bit of effort to learn what you can and can’t do in it. We had to restart Beholder Complete Edition several times because we made one financial mistake and found it causing quick game overs—which is technically an ending of sorts—but as time passed, we began to understand how to make wise decisions with money and how to avoid certain problems from arising. Aside from the tough learning curve—and we mean tough even on the trainee difficulty—Beholder Complete Edition can, at times, be a bit tedious. While talking to tenants and exploring rooms is fun, after hours of gameplay, the process can become a bit repetitive. Only when story moments arise did we find ourselves here at Honey’s Anime back in full alert. Does that mean Beholder Complete Edition is a boring game? No, not at all, but it does mean that at times be prepared to have slower moments that luckily can be sped up with a click of the button.

Simulator games like Beholder Complete Edition don’t come around too often. While it can be quite daunting to learn the ins and outs of Beholder Complete Edition, when you do, the game becomes a truly unique simulator title that tells a dark story with numerous hints of a dark possible future ruled by strict laws and unforgiving punishments. While Beholder Complete Edition isn’t perfect thanks to its vague explanations at times and sometimes slow-paced gameplay, we still had a solid experience with both the main game and DLC called Beholder: Blissful sleep. If our review showed anything above that intrigues you in the slightest we truly believe you will enjoy Beholder Complete Edition. Just don’t expect an easy simulator even on the trainee difficulty.

Beholder Complete Edition is one of those games that you can find yourself getting addicted to if you love story based simulation titles. With so many ways to play and none being wrong—at least in terms of gameplay the morality is another story—we truly enjoyed Beholder Complete Edition and we feel many of you out there will too. Comment down below if Beholder Complete Edition is a game you think is right for you or one you’d rather pass on for now. Also, while you’re down there tell us your thoughts on our Beholder Complete Edition review! For more gaming reviews and articles, keep returning to our hive here at Honey’s Anime.