I am ridiculously suspicious of anything that takes place on April 1st. So, sadly, I did not pay attention to Content Warning when it came out. It took a nudge from my editor to take a look at it, and I luckily ended up being one of the 6 million (like what!?) people who downloaded Content Warning for free in the first 24 hours.
A few nudges from me, and my PC gamer friends also picked up the game. The next thing I know, we are cackling our way through the Old World, sacrificing one of our team members for the ‘views’ and getting up to all kinds of shenanigans together.
See, I am always hesitant about horror games. I am not ashamed to admit that I am a massive scaredy cat. This makes it all the more entertaining that I have played quite a few of them, usually with the volume turned all the way down. This game, however, is a multiplayer experience first, rather than a horror title.
A Rewarding Run
Content Warning requires you to band together with your friends to go to the Old World, film scary moments with monsters, and then upload it to Spooktube to be the next viral star. It is easy to describe but hard to accomplish.
Firstly, this is a ridiculously well-balanced game. Every element of the game feels well tested, be it the layout, or how quickly the battery dies, the length of the film in the camera, or even how long your oxygen runs. I can’t even begin to tell you how impressive that is. I walked away feeling like every design decision was intentional.
Every run we made into the Old World felt satisfactory, and I never felt like we were robbed of time. Neither did I feel like we were in there too long. Instead, I always felt like our team needed to come up with a better strategy to maximize the returns with the constraints that exist.
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During each run, we always ran into at least two monsters that challenged us in unique ways. Most of the time it was the snail dude, but I am not mad about that. We were always able to have a fun encounter that made for interesting content, and it was fascinating to try and figure out what would work for our videos.
It was also a genius move to keep a static environment while the monsters and players spawn in random places on the map. This kept the dark environment from being overwhelming, allowing those of us without any sense of direction to learn part of the map. I did still get lost a few times because I was more concerned with stumbling across monsters than seeing where I was going.
Hidden Depths
Content Warning has a large variety of monsters that behave uniquely. Our group did try to cheat… we looked up the GamesHorizon guide on how to escape the monsters. We failed and ended up panic-playing and laughing every time we ran into a monster. It is a compliment that even when we did get scared or fail at a run, we always wanted to go back.
This game runs like a dream. Even with a server overload warning, it was very easy to host a game and load in friends or level elements. The game has a great atmosphere with a bright cartoony feel for the home base and a beautifully rendered, gritty, almost grainy black-and-white feel for the Old World. It is a beautiful mix of simplicity and detail that makes every minute of the game a joy.
The game also provides you features to make your ‘videos’ very engaging. From a variety of different lighting options, to emotes and filming equipment, it all adds to the overall game goal as well as the feel of the title. It isn’t as intimidating as a survival title.
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The great multiplayer concept of making a ‘found footage’ style video makes it fun and silly even when you are running away, screaming, from the monsters. When you finally make it back, you then get to see how ‘the world’ reacts to your video.
As your video streams on Spooktube, it comes with comments that react to the events of your video. The comments will use your Steam profile names or mention features you have captured on film. This, for me, was an amazing detail, one that increased my immersion. My fictional audience made me keen to try another run, just to see what they would say. Just like the real world, there was a true joy in trying to find virality.
The Horrors
My one concern is that eventually, the simplicity of the game’s goal- to make a viral video on Spooktube can make this game boring once virality is achieved. My squad members agree upon this. For now, I think it falls to the group to keep creating different goals for themselves, in addition to the game’s goal of creating a viral video.
The one thing that bothered me was that there was almost no onboarding or tutorial system. To be fair, it is a simple game, and you can get a hang of most of the mechanics while you play it. However, this ‘discover as you go’ method will only get you so far.
Since my playstyle involves running away from monsters while screaming at the top of my lungs, I didn’t even know that I had to use different strategies with the monsters. It was only when I looked at my fellow writers’ Content Warning guides that I realized there were different ways of tackling the monsters.
We have no way of understanding any information outside the basic instructions to play the game. We don’t get any information on how the other tools in the shop will help us. We also get very limited feedback on our videos themselves; we only get the viewer count and comments. There is no way to plan how to improve our run or videos.
Dearest development team, it would be awesome if these onboarding elements or feedback at least showed up in the menu as a journal.
The Post-Game Analysis
This game is an amazing multiplayer idea. In hindsight, it seems so obvious. I almost wish I could have played Fatal Frame the same way; I would have finished it faster. I think with a few tweaks to the tutorial and feedback system, Content Warning could have some true staying power.
While it is no longer free, if you have friends and want a fresh co-op experience, this is a game you should add to your library. I can see it becoming a go-to run for most groups of friends because of how easy it is to step into.
I look forward to seeing what kinds of videos my friends make. More than that, I am hoping for a console port so that I have a bigger group to play this game with.
Content Warning is available on Steam.
Content Warning
If you're looking for a fresh and fun co-op title to play with your friends, Content Warning is a game you should add to your library.
The Good
- Cool multiplayer concept
- Great design, with every run feeling very balanced and satisfying
- Amazing art style and soundscape add to the spook factor
- Wide variety of monsters that require different strategies to survive
- Good use of static environment and random spawning for the monsters
- A lot of detail and gameplay elements
- A game with a great sense of humor
The Bad
- Limited replayability at the moment
- No tutorial system or detail on Monsters or Store Items
- There is very limited feedback so you don’t know why you succeed or fail
