Silver Pines: PS5 Review

Created by Wych Elm Games
Published by Team 17
Platform: PS5

The ideas of an abandoned village, a detective placed in the middle and a compelling mystery to play out are not new by any stretch of the imagination.

But Wych Elm Games' latest, Silver Pines, combines the familiar in an unsettling mix of Metroidvania exploration and mystery thriller. It's a heady mix and thanks to some great visuals and some intelligent storytelling, it's the kind of game that will consume hours of your time while simultaneously terrifying you.

You are private eye Red Walker, who, as the game begins, has just arrived at a diner. Waking up at the seemingly abandoned diner, you shamble around the spooky venue to discover no one is around, the front door is locked and the radio is spouting emergency warnings for people to stay in.

After some investigation, and discovering a key, Red picks up a ringing payphone to be told he's to find Eddie Velvet, a singer-songwriter and that there's a storm coming. But there's more to the story, and to reveal anything else, would be to spoil it.

Using point and click mechanics and meshing together elements of survival horror, Silver Pines makes a compelling argument for the return of the genre and the simplicity of the very familiar formula. With a great sense of atmosphere and a relatively solid set of gaming mechanics, the game has a way of lulling you into a false sense of security before unleashing monsters upon you at every turn.

But it's also the animated world which excels here too. Filled with details and yet never feeling overstuffed, it's a relative joy to explore every possible arena and discover the devious secrets within. The almost painterly approach to the graphics works well and the shade of fog and general grey that haunts most of it will give you nightmares for a long time to come.

With neo-noir culture informing a lot of the game's backdrop, Silver Pines is perhaps a gaming successor to the likes of David Lynch - it's deeply absorbing, rewarding yet difficult and entirely different from what's been produced before.