It Reaches - PS5 Review

[Left] An amalgamation of arms, legs and flesh are stuffed into, and spill out of a cage. The bars bend slightly under the pressure. The whole image is red, and the eyes of the screen have camcorder lines, and a red recording dot is in the upper left corner. The white text below this dot reads 'It Reaches'.

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It Reaches is a new body-cam horror game coming to PS5. So, of course, I will be checking it out. The game is developed by Emberflight Games, and has us taking the role of a cop. Who is called out to check out something? It Reaches is out now on the PlayStation Store, and you can purchase it by clicking here.

Sorry I’m all thumbs.

A man sat on the floor with his head in his arms with his knees up. He is wearing a police officers cap, and gloves. The area is illuminated around him showing a nearby shotgun. — Guy already looks done with everything.

Gameplay

We hit up an old abandoned hospital as Officer Thompson, who is responding to a call. On arrival, and after having a look around he is quickly pulled into what looks to be a long night. As now, Thompson needs to fight, hide, and run away from the various horrors he will encounter in It Reaches. There is combat, but ammo isn’t scarce, so there isn’t much need to worry about that front. And the only real threats to deal with are these little tree things. Most segments will have players hiding and avoiding the larger monsters, all while looking for items. Or doing tasks to unlock the doors so that you can move forward.

The player is aiming their firearm at two oncoming enemies. — Stand down!

It Reaches, does let players upgrade their firearms with bolts they will find here and there. These are some of the typical upgrades you would expect, such as more damage and faster reload times. Healing is another factor that players won’t have to worry so much about. As there aren’t any healing syringes or med kits here, you will be taken out in two hits by most things. And some obstacles can take you out in one hit.

Graphics & Audio

Unfortunately, a number of aspects got in the way of the immersion for It Reaches. Right off the bat, I wasn’t a fan of the bodycam setting in-game or the camera shake. While you could turn camera shake off, you could only reduce the bodycam style rather than disable it. I decided to play with them on to keep the experience as intended, but most of the time, it was nauseating. It was almost like playing the POV of someone with a migraine or a hangover, and it had me squinting for most of the game.

A door of fingers all interlocked together, there also seems to be random furniture around with blood splatters. The player themselves is holding a shotgun in their hands. — A whole door made of Richmond sausages.

I also always enable subtitles, but they were the tiniest I’d ever seen in my life. There was no option to increase their size either, and much of the game’s visuals felt like an eye test. The audio was also a bit unbalanced, as the spoken audio was insanely quiet, but the music was overpowering. Between the tiny subtitles and quiet voices, I barely heard what was going on. The game also suffered from many stuttering and frame rate issues. Particularly when an enemy was nearby, the game was constantly stuttering, which led me to bump into walls while trying to turn corners, or struggling to turn the camera as it lagged around

Longevity

My total runtime with It Reaches was about 5 hours, so the game is rather short. There aren’t any other endings, but you can find several collectables hidden around, hiding in sphincters. Lastly, for the Trophy Hunters, there are a total of 20 to collect. You may need another play-through, but if you pick up It Reaches at another point, a guide will make it a one-time job.

Final Thoughts

The game is just rather meh, the story wasn’t really doing it for me, and the combat was okay. But most of the problems stem from the oddly long and repetitive segments. It also felt out of place with having Thompson deal with his own personal trauma, while everything was going on. I personally didn’t see anything that connected him to what he was experiencing in the hospital. More so when the player has seen what he is grieving.

Sadly, without giving spoilers, It Reaches just comes across as odd in a few areas. And with the amount of motion blur and stuttering I have already mentioned. I am giving it the Thumb Culture Bronze Award. If the various issues are resolved, then maybe it’s a silver.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

About Author

Kyle McGrath

I’ve enjoyed video games for as long as I remember and I don’t think there isn’t a game I wouldn’t play. For reviews, I try my best to make them simple and easy to understand. With so many games released daily, I attempt to play them all.

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It Reaches – PS5 Review