Developed by Nipobox and Eastasiasoft Limited, ‘The Red Exile’ is a rogue-like, horror survival where every playthrough is random with its procedurally generated map, keeping you on your toes. Avoid your pursuer as you try to perform an exile rite to rid yourself of this maniac killer before he kills you first.

“Procedurally generated maps” always sounds like a great addition to a game for replayability, this is unfortunately not the case here. The tiles used to make up the map are all square-shaped and only have a few variations, making it almost instantly seem repetitive. This is followed up with a marker always showing you where the ritual room is, making it just a little too easy, completing a run in 3 – 8 minutes depending on how fast you find the candles.

As you progress through each room you must look for important and helpful items, especially the candles as they will be your main item in performing the exile rite. Some doors however will be locked, well barred by wooden planks in which you’ll need a crowbar that is a single use for some reason, or you could lure the killer into destroying them for you if you are slick enough.

Getting away from the killer is rather simple, closing the doors behind you will slow him down. If he is hot on your tail and you manage to find a locker, jump straight into it, even if he is right behind you as he apparently loses interest the second you do.

Being caught might startle you the first time, especially with the annoying noise and in-your-face jump scare. Beyond that it’s not scary at all and the lack of killer interaction regarding hiding again makes the game a little too easy.

Once you complete one of your runs, you’ll be rewarded with some skill points to purchase perks with, which might be the only thing I actually found intriguing about The Red Exile. In order to access your perks you’ll need to go back to the main menu, where you’ll be able to select from a good amount of perks. The only problem is you don’t know exactly what the perk does until you purchase it, after that you’ll be able to equip up to 3 perks at a time.

As mentioned earlier, the map is really repetitive with limited variation. Tile sets vary in such ways as having bathtubs, fallen lights, TVs, and cardboard boxes or even just being empty, all lit up with an ominous red light. This all sounds great on paper, but once you’ve seen them a few times it gets stale real quick.

Sound is alright for most of the game, hearing the footsteps of the killer, or your heartbeat racing when he is near are great indicators to help you survive, but that is as good as the sound gets. When you get caught by the killer I was expecting a monster scream or a demonic demon scratch of sorts but was rudely deafened by just a loud high pitch horn sound. It doesn’t really build much more of an atmosphere.

The Red Exile is a game I can’t really recommend for any horror fans, the only part that seemed well thought out was the perk system. The repetitive maps and gameplay are stale and lack replayability which is one of the core features. If you want a boost in your gamerscore on Xbox however this is an easy 1000G, which is quite common with Eastasiasoft published titles.

Written by: MrVibeAU