Game of the Week – Heartworm is a survival horror throwback with plenty of fresh ideas

• Heartworm is perfect if you want a throwback to PS1 horror like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Clock Tower, but with a modern indie sensibility

Here's the 60-second pitch for why you should play Heartworm this weekend: Haunted by the past, Sam sets out to contact the dead with only a camera at her side. An abandoned house leads her on a path through surreal, liminal spaces haunted by memory, which her camera flash can dispel as she puzzles her way to the heart of a strange cathedral. Retro-style survival horror feels slick to control here with fresh twists like the camera adding to the action, while feeling a love letter to the genre.

Why play it today?

• Heartworm is now out on consoles, bringing its slick take on classic survival horror action to players outside of PC, and it's been a long time coming

Heartworm has finally jumped off the PC to come to all platforms, and publisher DreadXP mean it – coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch 2, but also the older generation as well. A love letter to PS1-era survival horror, plenty of options allow you to decide how hardcore you want that to be, including the choice to go with tank controls or to turn them off.

With a tremendous horror atmosphere, early hours of the game are tense as you explore with just a camera at your side, able to hit the flash to temporarily light some otherwise pitch black spaces. From there, the game opens up across distinct and surreal environments, each area changing up the style of play slightly, and feeling like they nod towards different survival horror games of the past.

There's a Silent Hill 4: The Room vibe to how Sam navigates the strange, liminal realm she's ended up in to explore these vastly different spaces, from tight hallways in suburban houses to a forest full of its own creeping terrors. Rather than being completely lost in recreating classic survival horror, the moments where Heartworm does its own thing shine, with its TV-static unifying aesthetic being striking, as well as the constant use of your camera.

Time commitment:

Heartworm takes about about 4-6 hours to beat depending on how anxious you get about needing to save your game, how long puzzles stump you, and whether you grab every collectible. Each area is clearly delineated as well, meaning there's easy points to take a break.

Play Heartworm if you love:

Skip Heartworm if you want:

One thing to know:

There are a handful moments in Heartworm that can be a bit too referential, with the final act's breadth of environments sometimes nodding quite directly to survival horror classics in a way that can pull me out. Even so, they're not overbearing, and you're not missing anything if they pass you by, either.

A moment you'll remember:

Like the best horror, Heartworm has a fantastic opening as you explore an abandoned house and the tension rises for just when you'll be thrown into danger for the first time. Thanks to the camera flash mechanic allowing brief bursts of light, Heartworm can make the most of some truly dark locations. These become less prominent later, but it makes for a really memorable beginning.

The final verdict:

In my Heartworm horror spotlight when it launched on PC last year I said that "if, like me, you love retro survival horror from the '90s and '00s, you owe it to yourself to make an evening out of this one" and I stand by that. But, I'll also accept if you need to make it a few evenings rather than binge this snappy adventure in one go. In the time since launch, my fondness for this blend of modern ideas with retro concepts has only grown, and I look forward to seeing more from developer Vincent Adinolfi in the future.

So, where can you play it?

Heartworm has just launched across all major platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo Switch, joining its original PC release. Across them all it's about $15 making this well worth picking up as a budget release.

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