It’s probably not really fair to call The Exit 8 a horror game, but I don’t know where else it fits. You are trapped in a featureless subway tunnel somewhere in Japan. You walk around a corner and see a long hall with doors on one side, posters on the other, yellow tiles running down it, and a man just turning the corner, coming your way. He ignores you.
You continue on, around a corner, and see a long hall with doors on one side, posters on the other, yellow tiles running down it, and a man just turning the corner, coming your way. He looks at you as he passes.
There’s a new sign on the wall that lists several rules:
- Don’t overlook any anomalies
- If you see any anomalies, turn around
- If you don’t see any anomalies, keep going
- To exit at Exit 8
You continue on and turn another corner, see the same posters, doors, man turning around, and this time he doesn’t look at you as he passes. If he looks at you, that’s an anomaly.
The entire game is finding those anomalies, and there are a lot of them. Some immediately obvious — the lights turn off, or the hall is flooded with red water, or creepy twins are standing there. Some aren’t — are those posters growing? Should that light be on? You turn around and see the man is an inch from your face, staring at you. A door opens, screeching. Eyes follow you. A dead woman stares at you from a crack in a door. Black ooze drips from vents. You will never escape this loop.
After awhile, you figure out how to get to the exit, with a lot of trial and error. And then, it’s — can you do it with zero mistakes? Can you do it fast? Each playthrough takes only a couple of minutes. It gets really hypnotic and relaxing. Frustrating when you think there were no anomalies but you got sent back to the beginning anyway.
Speed runners complete the game in a minute to a minute and a half, depending on how many anomalies they get (more is better). It takes me longer, but I get faster all the time.
