Teenagers and kids have a very hyperactive imagination. Often, they will make outrageous stories not because they want to lie to others but because these stories exist in their minds. What if these stories weren’t lies but were events happening and only the teens have the power to show the world the truth? That is the main premise in The Blackout Club where folks in a small town are becoming mindless beings at night with the teens being the only ones able to fight to survive. The Blackout Club has players taking the mantle as these teens and helping one another survive the seen and unseen enemy that lurks around them. Wonder what we thought about this unique take on action horror? We’ll tell you our thoughts in our early access review of The Blackout Club for the PC!

The Blackout Club is a multiplayer co-op-based horror game where players try to solve mysteries all while avoiding being taken by a strange entity controlling adults. Create your teen and choose from several powers and items to help you explore various maps called “mazes” that contain evidence to prove your group isn’t just dreaming this strange phenomenon happening. Be careful though, as there is a strange enemy hiding in plain sight that can only be seen with your eyes shut tightly. Can you survive the night and see the morning?!

During the day, the world seems normal; life goes on as per usual. However, in one small town, night changes the world entirely. Young teenagers find themselves forced into a deadly game where a mysterious presence known only as the shape seems to make people into controlled zombies. They are forced to flee from the adults as they search for clues to end this horrible nightmare before the morning erases their memories of the night prior. When one of the teens gets closest to solving the mystery, The Blackout Club realizes they must make moves now to find her and get enough evidence to shed light on this situation. Now it’s a race against time to save their friend and also keep alive as the Shape comes closer to changing their minds and controlling them for evil purposes…

The horror genre in the gaming world is an interesting one. Due to people’s different perception of what horror is, horror doesn’t always work the way it’s intended. Add co-op gameplay to a horror game—for example Resident Evil 5 or 6—and the horror element is basically all but gone. The Blackout Club by developer and publisher Question might have an answer to this dilemma by making a co-op game that fuses teamwork, gameplay and horror together. Does their early access title—meaning this game is still suffering from some bugs here and there—fail or succeed? Time to find out as we review The Blackout Club for the PC!

The Blackout Club has players entering a town that has been engulfed in a dark situation. At night, the adults end up controlled by what seems like a mind controlling entity and only the teens are kept from immediately being consumed. Once the night ends though, the teens and adults lose their memories of the night prior leading to many not believing in the bizarre incident. When one young woman tries to capture proof for The Blackout Club—the few teens who believe in the issues plaguing their town—is captured by what is known as “The Shape,” the club decides to gather their own evidence and bring this event to light! That’s where you come in. Your job as a new member of The Blackout Club is to team up with others, find clues and survive the night. Accomplishing this might seem simple and far from horror, but The Blackout Club does horror in ways we’ve never seen before.

Similar to games like Left 4 Dead, The Blackout Club has up to 4 players teaming up to explore mazes, places that look like the town but are altered in odd ways. Every maze tasks the players with accomplishing one of several missions that range from capturing evidence via your in-game smartphone or performing rituals to lessen the power of the shape. You’ll need to rely on your own wit, teamwork and skills/items to accomplish said tasks and avoid being captured or worse…being brainwashed yourself. You’ll have to sneak around various parts of the map to avoid the brainwashed adults and also rely on tools like crossbows with tranquilizers, stun guns and even fireworks. Tools are the coolest part to The Blackout Club as a strong team will utilize one of the several tools to all play a crucial role. You can have one player rely on stealth as they silently take down enemies or you can have one player be the guy who breaks into various areas with lockpicks and grappling hooks. No tool in The Blackout Club feels underwhelming and each can be used in various ways.

Outside of tools, as players level up from successful missions, they gain points to allocate towards skills. Skills in The Blackout Club range from takedown abilities to the ability to hold more items or even use items more efficiently. Just like tools, skills can really change the tide of survival for a well-prepared team. It’s important for players to utilize both elements to avoid being taken from the enemies which will end a team’s run quickly. Speaking of that, since we talked about the elements of gameplay, we haven’t gone into how playing The Blackout Club actually feels. We saved that for this moment on purpose though as it’s the best part of the game.

When playing The Blackout Club, you have to avoid two big things: being captured by the enemy—they will literally drag you towards a red door—or being brainwashed by the shape. In regards to being taken, while roaming around the mazes the AI will be on the prowl waiting for you to make too much noise or activate a trap. This is when you’ll either need to run for your life as fighting isn’t a great option—you’ll always need to use stealth takedowns or use tools—and should be considered a last resort. Then you have the shape which adds the darkest element of The Blackout Club…closing your eyes…

The Blackout Club has two rather distinct elements that keep the horror alive even when playing with friends or random players. The first is the so-called shape which lurks at random times. When prompted and the shape appears you can’t actually see it or hear it. You need to close your eyes—that’s an ability in The Blackout Club—and scan around seeing its yellow glow. Its legitimately terrifying at times even with your friends around as one touch or grab means you’re under its control and lose the ability to move or do anything. You’ll need an ally to come and snap you out of it. Add this to a possible traitor—when you reach a specific level you can betray your own allies—and you’re always wondering who can be trusted and who is secretly trying to get you brainwashed.

As great as The Blackout Club is though, it is an early access title meaning there are some issues. During not one but several games, we were crashing and we would find weird glitches scattered about as we played. The Blackout Club still is an early access title though. Thus, these issues are common place and Question seems to be aware of the various issues and try to fix them constantly. That’s why we’re sure the final build—that releases sometime this year—will be quite polished and won’t have these issues. We just make note of it now though as you’re still paying to play The Blackout Club.

The Blackout Club as an early access title shows a large level of promise. While we still see some big bugs needing to be worked out—especially the random crashes and odd glitches—The Blackout Club does more right than wrong for a still in work title. We loved controlling our characters as they went through various locations collecting evidence and trying to survive against numerous zombie-like humans. The fear of the shape always randomly appearing and making us close our eyes to see this invisible entity made us grip our keyboards and controllers in utter fear and anxiety, which is rare for a co-op horror game. Our hopes for the future of The Blackout Club is that we see more mazes, more enemy variety and some different tasks to take on to keep gameplay feeling fresh and exciting. Though for now, The Blackout Club is an early access game worthy of downloading and we think many online co-op fans will enjoy the horrors that await while playing.

The Blackout Club shows a testament to studies who say all ideas in games have been done before. Developer Question has brought to life a title that surprised us with numerous gameplay elements we’ve seen in games before being done in rather unique and interesting ways. Running from enemies while closing your eyes to see various things is a great and creepy idea and having mazes always change slightly keeps even the same map from feeling repeated after several runs through it. We still want to see more from The Blackout Club, but we’re pretty sure when this game goes into full release—which we’ll review it again if we can—we will be wowed by what is in the final product. Have you tried out The Blackout Club or are soon going too? Sound off in the comments below so we can hear from our lovely readers out there. Be sure to keep stuck to our hive for even more great game and anime related articles done by us here at Honey’s Anime.