CONCLUSE

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CONCLUSE is a single player and multiplayer survival simulation game with horror and mystery themes. It was developed by Concluse_Dev and was released on June 29, 2018. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Concluse is an atmospheric horror game which features puzzles, outstanding cutscenes, and something a little twisted..

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76%

Audience ScoreBased on 347 reviews

atmosphere68 positive mentions

gameplay11 negative mentions

Excellent atmospheric horror with a strong unsettling and eerie vibe reminiscent of classic PS1-era games like Silent Hill.
Great use of visual style and sound design to create tension and dread without relying on jump scares.
Free to play and offers several hours of gameplay with intriguing puzzles and a cryptic story that encourages exploration and interpretation.

Gameplay is primarily slow-paced key hunting with repetitive fetch quests and can become tedious and frustrating.
Very dark, low-resolution graphics with heavy grain and filters make it difficult to see important details, leading to eye strain and occasional confusion.
Clunky controls, unresponsive interactions, long codes, occasional bugs, and lack of clear direction hamper overall playability and immersion.

atmosphere
128 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
53%
45%
2%
The game excels in creating a deeply unsettling and immersive atmosphere, often likened to classic PS1-era horror and Silent Hill, using grainy visuals, eerie sound design, and minimal jump scares to evoke tension and dread. While the atmosphere is consistently praised as its strongest element, some players find it repetitive or insufficient to carry the experience alone due to simple puzzles and limited gameplay. Overall, it is highly recommended for fans of atmospheric, retro-inspired horror who prioritize mood and style over action or complex mechanics.
- “Great game with super unsettling atmosphere.”
- “The atmosphere is great: lo-fi horror at its best.”
- “This game bathes in atmosphere, I'm talking drenched to the bone in good time creepy time.”
- “Just walked around finding keys, with the most obvious puzzles and boring spooky atmosphere.”
- “Concluse bills itself a horror game, but there are no scares, and little even in the way of a tense or forbidding atmosphere.”
- “All atmosphere had been killed.”
graphics
117 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
63%
15%
The graphics of the game intentionally emulate a low-resolution, PS1-era aesthetic, which some players find atmospheric and evocative of classic horror titles like Silent Hill, enhancing the eerie, unsettling mood. However, many users criticize the visuals as overly dark, blurry, and difficult to interpret, with poor resolution and graphical glitches hindering gameplay and immersion. Overall, the retro style appeals to fans of pixelated horror nostalgia but may frustrate those expecting clearer visuals or modern graphical fidelity.
- “The PS1 art style was beautifully executed and helped tremendously in setting the mood.”
- “Concluse is one of those rare modern horror games with an indie throwback aesthetic that perfectly nails what made the PS1 era survival horror games so wonderful, cozy, and absolutely scary.”
- “The developers *nailed* the early PS1-era aesthetic, and I appreciated the option to turn up the resolution.”
- “But it also has a lot of gameplay jank, terrible visuals (what's the opposite of "eye candy?" "optical slop" I suppose?), and a nonsensical story.”
- “The graphics are worse than most PS1 games and so is the storytelling and world design.”
- “But okay, some people like that... the problem is that this developer does everything he can to not let you see the game, on top of the primitive graphics I just mentioned that makes everything look boring, he added a black and white filter, and he used a very small resolution (you can change it but it doesn't help), making it so doing stuff like reading notes, the few things that add any lore to the game, pretty much unreadable, not to mention the "monsters" that show up just look like indescribable blobs of black.”
story
106 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
66%
9%
The story of the game offers a mysterious, eerie narrative inspired heavily by Silent Hill, focusing on a man searching for his missing wife in a foggy, unsettling town. While some players find the story engaging and atmospheric with hidden lore and optional side content enriching the experience, others criticize it for being vague, derivative, and occasionally confusing or underdeveloped. Overall, the story succeeds in creating a creepy tone but often lacks originality and depth, leaving many hopeful for a more polished and expanded sequel.
- “The story throughout Concluse is a blend of uncovering the mystery behind dark, creepy, and otherworldly events around four locations of Cordova. The gameplay involves puzzle solving to uncover items (usually keys) to progress, but there is also an interesting optional payphone story mode where you find quarters to call one of three choices: home, mom, or Carolyn. If you stick to one call choice throughout, you uncover additional backstory.”
- “Instead I got an amazing near 2-hour experience. No free horror game has made me sit on my computer for nearly 2 hours, but this one had a great story and the voice acting was really good.”
- “I loved the atmosphere and the strangeness of the story, and the little things here and there that have me looking forward to what's to come.”
- “But it also has a lot of gameplay jank, terrible visuals (what's the opposite of "eye candy?" "optical slop" I suppose?), and a nonsensical story.”
- “All of this could be overlooked if the story was at least there, but it's virtually non-existent.”
- “The story is also kind of cobbled together from bits and pieces of Silent Hill games and doesn't have any originality in and of itself unfortunately.”
gameplay
62 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
15%
67%
18%
The gameplay is largely built around simple exploration, key-finding, and basic puzzle-solving, with repetitive mechanics that can feel slow and unintuitive. While it lacks variety and polish—often hampered by clunky controls and minimal interactivity—the strong atmospheric design and eerie storytelling help maintain player interest despite the gameplay’s shortcomings. Overall, it offers a brief, atmospheric experience rather than engaging or complex mechanics.
- “It's scary, it doesn't rely on ear-destroying jumpscares, has a pretty good hook and story, it is voice acted with convincing and scary dialogue, and the overall gameplay keeps you from getting bored while maintaining the scare and anxiety of the horror.”
- “While the gameplay is relatively simple, what makes it work is a well-done cohesive atmosphere, a good element of intrigue, and a general strangeness to everything around it.”
- “Awesome gameplay: not extremely scary but very creepy and confusing, with very good puzzles. I wish the game didn't end on a cliffhanger, hoping part 2 comes very soon.”
- “But it also has a lot of gameplay jank, terrible visuals (what's the opposite of 'eye candy?' 'optical slop' I suppose?), and a nonsensical story.”
- “"Gameplay" wise, there really isn't any... you traverse through the world with a lot of jank, (particularly the sewer section where I was spamming the space bar to navigate a tunnel) to fetch another item and then rinse and repeat in another section.”
- “Bad gameplay: classic BS like pick up the key that is 5 feet away from the door so you can pick up another key and open another door that is 5 feet away from that door.”
music
25 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
44%
12%
The game's music is widely praised for its strong contribution to the atmospheric and nostalgic experience, with many highlighting the ambient soundtrack, sound effects, and old-school vibe as standout elements. The soundtrack is noted to enhance the horror and immersion, and is even available as a free DLC, further appreciated by players. Some praise specific tracks for evoking classic game vibes, although a few critiques mention minor technical issues unrelated to the music itself.
- “I honestly recommend playing this if you love old school games, the music and feeling throughout the whole game is just perfect, from the OST to the sound cues.”
- “Apart from the utterly pitch perfect atmosphere, the writing, level designs & music is also noteworthy.”
- “The soundtrack is awesome and really has that nice PSX feel for many of the tracks.”
- “It hasn't a soundtrack, I think it isn't worth to program such a bad game, it's time waste.”
- “The "dark" sewer level had music that was directly from the SH2 soundtrack.”
- “The atmosphere does a lot of work, bolstered by the simplistic graphics and ambient soundtrack, but again it can only do so much.”
stability
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from numerous stability issues, including frequent bugs, collision glitches, and crashes that can halt progress or trap the player. Visual and graphical glitches, such as blurry textures and problematic flashlight effects, further detract from the experience. These persistent problems make gameplay frustrating and occasionally unplayable.
- “I lost at least 1 hour because I got stuck in terrain. There are major problems when you have to get over some obstacles that are just 10 cm high (usually when getting out of the train cart and walking on wooden planks). I managed to walk through walls and bathroom doors. Most documents are so blurry you can barely read them, and there are awful visual glitches when using the flashlight.”
- “A couple of times I ran into collision glitches where my character went through a wall and fell into oblivion.”
- “Game crashes at the first hurdle. At my first interaction in the game, I tried to open the train door, then after it flashes the text 'the door won't budge', it just freezes every time I play.”
grinding
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The grinding aspect is often seen as tedious and burdensome, with some achievements requiring multiple playthroughs and repetitive backtracking through dark, expansive environments. Puzzles can feel unintuitive and more frustrating than engaging, leading players to rely on guides or take breaks. Additionally, unskippable cutscenes and certain controversial content contribute to a negative overall experience.
- “And despite being "neutral" as a review, I of course have to pick a side, so I chose negative for the final verdict due to grindy achievements forcing multiple playthroughs with unskippable cutscenes.”
- “It can get tedious to walk back and forth through these environments (which can get rather expansive, especially near the highway) looking for small items in the grainy darkness.”
- “Some grindy achievements.”
replayability
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The replayability of the game is mixed; while some appreciate elements like unlocking all three backstories, others find the required tasks tedious and feel it lacks the engaging, lasting appeal seen in classic horror games.
- “Old horror games were not only creepy because of their obscured, uncanny graphics, but they were also extremely replayable.”
- “This also adds replayability to unlock all 3 backstories.”
- “0/10 - replayability & content”
- “Obviously, there is some replayability required via the quarters and telephones, but I am not doing all that again.”
optimization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game's optimization is mixed, with some initial technical performance and stability issues noted, but it generally runs smoothly once players become familiar with its mechanics.
- “0/10 - performance & tech stability”
humor
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's humor largely stems from its unintentional campiness and poor quality, which some players find amusing in a "so bad it's good" way. While not intentionally funny, the game's flaws provide comedic value for those who enjoy ironic or self-aware humor.
- “This game is objectively bad, but some parts were so bad that they made me laugh. If you are looking for a game that is so bad it becomes good again, you should try this game.”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is free and does not include microtransactions, which is appreciated; however, some users find it unengaging enough that they wouldn't be upset about uninstalling before completion.
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game evokes a unique emotional experience by creating a seemingly lifeless world that paradoxically makes players feel intensely alive and engaged. This contrast enhances the emotional depth and immersion.