Crow Country

This year has been magnificent for indie horror games, and three of them form the unholy trinity of the brilliant resurgence of old-school survival horror. Conscript, Hollowbody, and the subject of today’s review, Crow Country, are solo dev games, all focusing on the grand design principles from the golden era of survival horror, creating those low-fi creepy vibes in the fullest, and enriching players with a sense of urgency, lateral thinking, and tactical horror gameplay. You may have guessed already that Crow Country is simply fantastic and possibly the best of the trio.

And here’s why.


What is Crow Country?


Like a lo-fi, ambient throwback mix on YouTube, we’re taken back to 1990 when the Cold War was ending, Nelson Mandela was freed, and “Blaze of Glory” was released by Jon Bon Jovi. It was a magnificent era where vibes, designs of Fast-Food chains, and media took on a very different, sometimes uncanny tone compared to now. When the game starts, we see Officer Maira Forest heading to the abandoned and long-forgotten theme park “Crow Country”, in search of its owner, Edward Crow.

Upon entering the ill-fated theme park, Maira notices that something is not quite right, and soon enough she realises a whole lot is going on here, from finding injured strangers, crossing paths with employees and other people looking for Crow, and a whole heap of very disturbing monsters roaming the once thriving child-friendly park.

Maira is determined to find Crow, and ventures deeper into the hub of 90’s inspired madness. Why though? She can leave at any time yet is settled to finish the job. There is a compelling mystery at the heart of Crow Country, involving greed, corruption, and a touch of cosmetic horror. As Maira explores the park, she gets deeper into the sister mystery, which leads her to solve puzzles, collect key items, manage resources and deal with the forces of darkness and the maze-like theme park itself.


I’ll give you something to Crow about!


We’ve had plenty of games masterfully incorporate aesthetics from the bygone era of survival horror, even to work some elements of presentation into the gameplay. As any great old-school survival horror did, with things like fixed cameras.

Crow Country, like Conscript or Signalis, is isometric, yet a form that allows you to free-rotate the camera a full 360 degrees, and its art style is far from pixel art, but more Final Fantasy meets Resident Evil.

I adore the presentation of Crow Country, from its thick polygon characters, lovingly pre-rendered game world, and early 90’s uncanny vibes which feel truly ripped from that era. Crow Country is one of the more visually appealing, interesting old-school horror games I’ve played this year, and one that managed to look charming, but also be utterly terrifying. It’s so weird, wildly unsettling, and looks and feels something from that era of gaming, mid-90s jank and style above and beyond.

That’s not to say other indie horror games don’t look nice, it's just that Crow Country feels like it wanted to do something a tat bit risky, however pays off fantastically. And nails it even further with a good soundtrack.

As for the story, it’s quite goofy I’m not going to lie. But in a good way in all fairness, it does get pretty insane towards the end. Starting with Maira and the supporting cast, they’re all pretty great, especially Maira, who takes a striking resemblance to YouTube’s horror gaming queen, Suzie Sphere Hunter. She has a fun, remarkably likeable persona with good quips about the strangeness of the world, a no-nonsense attitude and that right amount of grit to get you rooting for her. The supporting cast is also made up of some great characters, all offering a sort of weird, David Lynch vibe that keeps you on your toes, and leaves a lasting impression while you venture alone into the spooky theme park.

What starts as a simple-ish mystery turns into a tale that’s as old as time itself, and one we’ve surely seen a million times before. Crow Country has plenty of interesting elements and super surreal moments that make Crow Country feel a little fresher than other horror games. The pacing of clues and revelations is good, keeping you invested until the bitter end, and there Crow Country offers an assortment of choices and endings to wrap things up. The only main complaint was that the endings didn’t feel quite fulfilling, and just seemed more like a note to conclude and wrap things up as quickly as possible.

It might have been nice to include some Resident Evil 3-style documents, telling you more about what happened with each character, but nothing is fleshed out after the credits roll. This is a shame, as the notes and documents you find are compelling, enough to feed your urge to find out more. And thankfully the game is kind enough to bring all the story elements by the end, never to leave you in the dark.

Crow Country is stellar with its presentation, art style, and offers an engaging narrative, and set of characters to keep you going through the creepy crow-themed adventure park, and to find out what the hell is happening!


A Murder of Crows … not a Murder of Ravens (that’s just silly)


 As you might expect from an old-school-inspired indie horror game, it has all the bells and whistles of an old-school survival horror game! Including gripping exploration, where each new room can hold unknown rewards or danger. Managing a tight supply of resources, where you must savour every bullet, or partake in evading enemies blocking your path. That old survival horror chestnut of using ammo or risk using health items if your evasion skills are a little rusty. Plus, there are a ton of obscure, weird puzzles that require all sorts of strange key items and logical thinking.

The most interesting design choice is how you aim weapons, and it’s something that does take a little getting used to. The camera is a low-hanging isometric, allowing players to grasp the environment more three-dimensionally. Compared to Signalis, Crow Country has a greater sense of depth, which allows you to free-aim objects and enemy body parts. It’s not a straightforward affair of tank control aiming, but rather you’re given more free range on where to aim and shoot.

And from the above angle, it does feel very odd to begin with. I remember playing the demo and just not gripping the controls at all. I did take a little bit of time, about an hour of shooting and aiming to fully grasp the sense of aiming in Crow Country. Once I did, it was all fine, and thankfully Crow Country grants players plenty of tricks in the environment to ensure that if aiming isn’t your strong point, you can still be effective in dispatching lurking enemies. From red barrels to electrical boxes, there are plenty of environmental advantages for you to use. Just remember, these don’t respawn, yet enemies do!

This brings me to my biggest praise for gameplay, and that is how Crow Country solves the age-old problem of survival horror games and the lack of respawning enemies. Old Resident Evil games wouldn’t respawn enemies, and so if you killed off zombies or crows in an era, they wouldn’t respawn. This design limitation was overcome in the RE remake, where zombies could come back to life unless you burned them. Burning enemies is a staple now for survival horror games, not often used but it’s there in many and even in Conscript and Hollowbody. Crow Country’s method of throwing in new enemies after clearing out an area or changing enemies as time progresses is more visceral and stimulating.

Never knowing if new monsters would spontaneously appear, and what they would be, making my backtracking unsettling as I didn’t know what to fully expect. Truly this is something other horror games should do more of, and I’m glad Crow Country was able to keep me on my toes.

There is a good variety of enemies, many of whom are like your typical zombie, and don’t require much in tactical shooting, but there are others thrown in to mix things up. Including the incredibly tall, stringy skeletons that don’t make it easy to shoot them! Other dangers roam in the park, with plenty of booby traps scattered around for good measure. Again, glad Crow Country kept me on my toes in an effectively frightening manner, that didn’t become irritating thankfully.

The branching world is expertly crafted, allowing for genius looping-level design, meaningful backtracking, and a sense of discovery which made me want to go into every room and find every clue. It’s not often I play a survival horror game nowadays which gives me that urgency and sense of happiness by exploring and uncovering the map in full. And thankfully the map gives you insights and notes for when you see a puzzle you can’t quite solve at the time and will have to come back to later. The world design and layout are exceptional, and there is the right amount of maze-like, puzzlingly intriguing, and graspable scale that is not overly large or small, but compact and fulfilling, with discoveries you want to keep roaming around again and again to ensure you get them.

And that’s the biggest strength of Crow Country is just how enriching and rewarding it is, as it brims with personality and horror gravitas. Even in the easiest mode, where there are no enemies at all, you can still have a blast just venturing around, solving puzzles and finding the secret loot. The developers had so much fun designing and mapping out the loot, puzzles, and key items, where having no combat doesn’t reflect negatively as the map and exploration gameplay is so sublime.

I do wish however there was a randomiser or rearrange mode (like with the original Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, or the Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil 2). It would have been awesome to see the game world mixed up, where key items and resources are swapped around. Or even to change up certain puzzles, as many of them are great and do get the brain juices flowing, while a couple stood out as being duds.

It’s more work I understand and can be difficult to plan, maybe a nice idea for the future. I do feel more is on the way anyway (I hope), as one area is completely locked off and it feels like a nice place for DLC.

Yet there is plenty of unlockable content, giving you a reason to jump back in repeatedly. I certainly did. All and all, Crow Country has compelling and brilliant survival horror gameplay, with intense and brutal combat, a great variety of puzzles, set-pieces, frights and thrills, its biggest strength is the Crow Country theme park itself, being as memorable as Silent Hill or the Spencer Mansion.


Overall?

This year has been something else for indie horror, and more so a vastly important era of game development, which proves with heart, soul and creative passion, any one person can create, and elevate a game to such a remarkable standard. Crow Country is simply magnificent, so much so that I can easily top it high and mighty on my top-of-the-year list. It radiates sheer brilliance with its stellar presentation, quirky surrealistic world, intense survival horror gameplay and replay value. It’s focused, and elegantly put together, and made me come back again and again to explore the creepy crow-themed amusement park.

Crow Country tops 2024’s ever-growing empire of riveting survival horror games and gleefully should go down with the genre classics such as Silent Hill 2, and Resident Evil Remake.

Simply put, Crow Country is outstanding, and you should check it out.

+++ Awesome presentation, and funky 90’s gaming vibes
++ Excellent and gripping survival horror gameplay
++ Fantastic sense of exploration, reward, and discovery
++ Lots of replay value

- Aiming takes a little time to get used too
- Endings are fine, but a little more aftermath clarity feels needed
- Maybe needed an additional mode, like randomiser or rearrange to top things off

The publisher kindly provided a review copy of Crow Country.