Developed on the Unreal 5 Engine, Bad Vice Games bring us Ravenous Devils. The horror cooking simulation title is available across most platforms and is available now. For Steam users, you can also check out their free demo via Steam to try before you buy!
Waiter! I Have Found A Bit Of Human In My Food?!
Lately, I have grown fond of a good simulator title. As long as it had some good progression and challenging gameplay you can be on to a winner. Not going to lie either, I am an absolute sucker for a good upgrade system within a sim title as well! Will Ravenous Devils fulfill all of the above? Keep reading to find out.
Gameplay
You play as Hildred and Percival, the game starts with a new property purchase and for a property of its kind it is an absolute steal. You then find out that it was in fact owned by a local barber (I wonder who that could be?). The property comprises a kitchen in the basement, a restaurant above, followed by tailors above that, and then another floor with a cold room and a greenhouse. I should probably add that the tailor’s fitting room also has a chute that runs directly to the kitchen.
After the introduction, you are transported to the property where the game begins. Taking you on an easy-to-follow tutorial that shows you have to run a tailor’s and a restaurant successfully. All with a hint of cannibalistic tendencies might I add. Within the tutorial, it shows you how to acquire the bodies (a.k.a murdering your clients) along with how to dispose of their bodies and clean up after them. The clothes from your victims are collected and resold at a premium and the bodies are thrown in the meat grinder. There are no holds barred with Hildred and Percival! After the grinding, you then have a choice of meals that can be made, from burgers to steaks with various sides. There is an abundance of recipes to unlock that you can feed your customers, all with a hint of human.
Along with the above, you can also upgrade your property and the contents within it. For example, in the kitchen, you can add more cookers and workspace and In the tailors, you can add more mannequins for more sales. When it comes to the cafe you can add more displays for your pies and more tables to bring more customers in. Whilst on the top floor you have a cold room for body storage and a greenhouse for them all important veggies. Thankfully there are enough corpses around to use for fertilizer.
You can even hire an extra hand so you can cook faster. My advice when it comes to upgrading is to upgrade the resource elements first e.g extra cloth from victims and the extra tables and ovens. Then as soon as you can get extra pie stands and staff. Grow your businesses slowly but make sure you can control them. For example, if you unlock too many recipes and not enough ovens and kitchen tables, it can become extremely overwhelming which ultimately will give your business a bad name.
As you progress through the game there is a side story, you receive emails for example about certain clients. However, as we are a spoiler-free site I won’t be going into detail in this review.
Graphics & Audio
When it comes to the graphics, They arent your high-end AAA assets but do look like they could be from a previous generation. The environment you are in is dark and reminiscent of old London. Dirty brick walls and hard stone floors, not full of texture but enough to bring you into the game. If this was anything but a point-and-click title then this would have been a drawback. However, as the game is more focused on gameplay, the grunginess almost added to the days of murdering and cooking.
From an audio perspective, the soundtrack is fairly quiet. There is a dark and gloomy old-style rhythm playing in the background. However, when you are in-game there is obviously a lot going on. From the hustle-bustle of the tavern to the murdering up above, the sound FX captured fit perfectly. If you weren’t watching the game but heard it from afar, I think it’s safe to say you would know precisely what is happening.
Longevity
The game does have a lot of game time present, mainly because it’s a simulator title. However, Ravenous Devils is a title that personally I will probably play through once. Maybe push to the platinum trophy if it’s within arms reach. A title like Ravenous Devils is a perfect candidate for DLC and expansion. A great base game but would eventually benefit from extra content.
Final Thoughts
Ravenous Devils is a fairly simple simulator title. Did the upgrade paths/skill tree blow me away? Not particularly. However, it was still a fun take on a sim title, especially if you like titles such as Sweeney Todd. I really enjoyed my time in the game and it’s definitely one I will keep installed and play when I want some downtime playing solo titles. Overall Ravenous Devils doesn’t offer you the world when it comes to the depth of the game. However, it offers an experience that is like none of the other sim titles on the market today. It is fun, dark, and slightly humorous, especially when a young boy comes looking for his parents who you butchered the previous day. Oh, I forgot to mention, you then give this boy a pie, he could potentially be eating his parents! I award Ravenous Devils A Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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