Hollow Head

About

Hollow Head is a single player shooter game with horror and thriller themes. It was developed by Rubeki Games and was released on January 12, 2020. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Hollow Head is a first-person horror adventure featuring PS1-style graphics and a deeply oppressive atmosphere. Players investigate eerie hallways after hearing a scream, uncovering unsettling mysteries beyond typical jump scares. This director's cut version adds new content, lore, and challenges for a haunting experience that lingers.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

67%

Audience ScoreBased on 39 reviews

atmosphere8 positive mentions

gameplay3 negative mentions

The game offers a unique and creepy atmosphere reminiscent of PS1-era horror games, which many players find endearing.
It's a short but thrilling experience, packed with genuine scares and multiple endings that enhance replayability.
The sound design is exceptional, contributing significantly to the overall horror experience and immersion.

The gameplay can become monotonous due to excessive backtracking through dimly lit corridors, leading to frustration.
The lack of a coherent narrative and abrupt ending leaves players feeling bewildered and unsatisfied.
Some players experience technical issues, such as input lag and poor graphics settings, which detract from the overall enjoyment.

atmosphere
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
57%
22%
21%
The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its creepiness and tension, effectively immersing players in a haunting experience that evokes feelings of paranoia and dread. While some reviews note a reliance on loud noises for scares and tedious gameplay elements, the overall consensus highlights the game's strong visual design and ability to create a nerve-wracking ambiance, making it a compelling short horror experience. Players appreciate the well-placed jump scares and the unsettling environment, which contribute significantly to the game's appeal.
- “Really nice, creepy, atmospheric PS1-styled horror game that has very well-placed jump scares and a nerve-wracking end sequence.”
- “It had me properly scream and spaz out at one point as I was wound up tight from the constantly unsettling atmosphere that is permeating.”
- “Add the atmosphere of encroaching paranoia - the more people you encounter, the more you start to feel like anyone who acknowledges your presence is inherently untrustworthy - and you get a game that'll have you looking over your shoulder, wondering if what you see is real, long after you've stopped playing it.”
- “You're mostly there to soak up the visuals and atmosphere.”
graphics
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
50%
25%
The game's graphics are heavily inspired by the PS1 era, featuring deliberately low-resolution and low-poly visuals that evoke a nostalgic yet outdated aesthetic. While some players appreciate the atmospheric quality these graphics create, others criticize them as a cop-out for higher quality visuals, leading to mixed feelings about the overall presentation. Despite the charm for fans of retro horror games, the lack of graphical settings and technical issues detract from the experience for some reviewers.
- “You're mostly there to soak up the visuals and atmosphere.”
- “And that's the biggest draw, the thing I most recommend Hollow Head for: the visuals and atmosphere.”
- “It doesn't merely imitate the look of PSX horror games, instead using the low-poly graphics to create a world that looks like it is, behind its distorted facade, being slowly eaten away.”
- “The game takes its graphical cues from the PS1 era.”
- “The game is presented with very low poly, deliberately low resolution graphics as a cop-out for higher quality graphics.”
- “The graphics are very PlayStation 1 ugly; the sound is okay, and the game is short (took me 49 minutes to complete even with the mouse cursor bug).”
gameplay
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
28%
43%
The gameplay is criticized for being overly short and repetitive, with simple riddles that can be solved quickly, leading to a monotonous experience. However, some players appreciate the trial-and-error elements and find the overall design, particularly the atmosphere, to be effectively terrifying.
- “Absolutely goddamn terrifying, very well designed in both gameplay and atmosphere.”
- “Either way it added to the gameplay and I didn't really mind it.”
- “After just over half an hour of gameplay, you find yourself unceremoniously booted back to the main menu, supposedly having 'completed' the game.”
- “The 'riddles' that the game throws at you can be solved within seconds, and the large body of gameplay involves running back and forth through dimly lit corridors, which - after 15 minutes of doing so - becomes monotonous rather than unnerving.”
- “Trial-and-error gameplay.”
story
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
67%
The story in "Hollow Head" features an unnamed protagonist who awakens to find his apartment transformed into a chaotic nightmare, but many users feel that the narrative lacks clarity and direction, leaving players confused about their objectives and the unfolding events. While the initial premise shows potential, it ultimately fails to develop into a cohesive story.
- “That's not necessarily bad if a story begins to unfold, but it never does.”
- “Hollow Head is the story of an unnamed protagonist who wakes up in the early morning to find his apartment has, quite literally, gone to hell.”
grinding
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game frustrating, as it quickly devolves into repetitive backtracking through tedious mazes while avoiding poorly designed instakill monsters. This disrupts the game's tension and pacing, particularly in a horror context, where the sense of impending doom is undermined by the need to repeatedly fetch items for NPCs.
- “Starts out promisingly enough with some nice low-fi atmosphere, but very quickly degenerates into trudging back and forth through tedious mazes and trying/failing to avoid poorly telegraphed instakill monsters.”
- “I especially hate backtracking in a horror game that has spent time and effort making me feel like I'm being drawn slowly but inexorably to my doom, only to bring all that forward motion to a grinding halt by forcing me to walk down the same hallway twenty times fetching scattered pieces of lint for some incorrigible NPC.”