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0 Last Year: The Nightmare from Elastic Games comes first as a timed exclusive to Discord. This 6 player 5 v 1 survival horror takes a look at high school and some 90’s themes.
How does it fair up against some other great asymmetric survival horror games out at the moment?
Lets get scared!
Gameplay
Last Year: The Nightmare takes place on Halloween night of 1996 where a group of teenagers wake up to find themselves trapped in a nightmarish reflection of their home town of Forest Hills. Spanning across the East Side High School Campus this band of teenagers are being hunted by a number of fearsome killers hellbent on capturing and killing each of the teenagers.
So who are these teenagers that you will be taking control of and trying to save? Well there is Chad the Jock, Nick the Nerd, Amber the achiever, Troy the cool kid and Sam the outcast. So choose your character and then you get to pick your class, you aren’t stuck with this class though as you get the option to switch it each time you respawn…and you will be respawning.
The classes you can pick from are medic, assault, technician and scout. Each come with a predetermined starting weapon that will be a great help in a number of situations. You can however, find new weapons scattered across the map as well as upgrade your current weapons by looking for loot around the environment in the form of scrap. Once you have enough scrap and a crafting kit you can upgrade your main weapon or even build new weapons to take on the killers. Having this mechanism in the game gives an extra added element to the game.
To win at round of Last Year: The Nightmare you have to complete a number of tasks to enable you to escape from the map. These can be moving cogs to open doors, or fuel to start a generator. Each step has to be done in order and so team work is key! For example you cant defend yourself if you are carrying a cog to the mechanism, so its down to your teammates to protect you. Get separated and its pretty much curtains for you and you will be respawning in no time!
Who is hunting you? Well there are 3 different killers available and each come with their own special weapons, these are Giant, Strangler and Slasher. I’m sure you can hazard a guess at their weapons and abilities each!
The one thing that sets the game apart from other similar titles is the Predator Mode. This allows you to move around the map quickly, and in Last Year: The Nightmare predator mode allows you to mess with the other players. However you can only become visible again if you are outside of the other players view. This means tactical play is very important if you want to get the jump on those meddling kids.
Currently there is only 3 maps, however Elastic Games have said they are planning on releasing more content for the game as it moves post launch.
Graphics
Having played the game on PC and on the highest graphics setting its brilliant. The characters are rendered fantastically and the environment that you move around in could be taken straight out of Saved By The Bell!
The game is played out in first person and as such gives you that sense of urgency, and hesitation for what could be around the next corner.
The game is dark for the most part, and the game does a great job of making sure those dark areas are incredibly black. Last Year: The Nightmare had me checking corners over and over again!
Audio
Last Year: The Nightmare does a great job with the audio, Elastic Games has added chatter between characters and it ramps up the anxiety levels to 11. The way the characters interact with each other as they are searching through the halls is brilliant. If someone spots a killer you immediately get a call out from someone letting you know.
Longevity
This is always a tough one when it comes to how long will this type of game last.
If you have a bunch of friends then you can potentially play this game to death as a form of party game. However diving into the game on your own with a bunch of randoms can quickly escalate into a frustrating mess. With you only hoping that the other members of your team know what they are doing. However on the other side and if you are controlling the killer and this happens, well its easy picking off those little lost sheep out on their own.
Conclusion
Last Year: The Nightmare is a great take on the survival horror genre and it definitely aims to carve out its own niche. However successful will it be though will only be clear after a few updates with some new content.
It has come out the blocks running, but how long can the momentum keep it going like that?
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