Total Chaos Reviews
Total Chaos is a survival horror that treats fear as a constant condition, rejecting immediate shock and spectacle in favor of atmosphere, silence, and psychological tension. The game keeps the player in a permanent state of alert through oppressive environments, empty spaces, and distant, ambiguous sounds, making subtraction its primary expressive tool. Its identity emerges most clearly through its aesthetic, which reworks a retro visual language into something grimy and corroded: visual distortion, grain, and decay turn Fort Oasis into a hostile, decomposing place, closer to a diseased organism than a simple setting. This sense of alienation carries over into the gameplay, deliberately slow and punitive, built around limited resources, heavy combat, and constant choices between confronting danger or avoiding it. Despite some technical roughness and a deliberately stretched pace that may divide players, Total Chaos stands out for the coherence of its vision and for an audiovisual presentation with strong impact, supported by fragmented and ambiguous environmental storytelling. It is not a game designed to appeal to everyone, but it leaves a lasting impression on those who seek a more introspective, oppressive form of horror, focused on atmosphere rather than spectacle.
The extreme lengths it takes to make the player feel hopeless may be too much for the casual player, so it's definitely not a game that could be recommended to everyone.
It’s not often we see such a thematic change between games like the move from Turbo Overkill to Total Chaos, but I think Trigger Happy Interactive has built something quite fun with this game. It might not always be consistent, but when Total Chaos hits, it hits like a sledgehammer crushing a twisted figment of our warping sanity.
When you put all of Total Chaos' myriad of gameplay elements together, a lot of the fear factor quickly disappears, giving way to something more akin to Doom than to survival horror. There's definitely an audience for this game, but it's more of a survival horror-adjacent experience. It has elements of the survival horror genre, but it leans too hard into the Doom formula. This combination creates a fun concept that needs editing to be a cohesive product. $25 is a fair price tag for what Total Chaos offers, but it may make some hesitate if they don't know what they're getting into.
Originally an ambitious Doom II mod, Total Chaos is an action-heavy survival horror gem.
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Review in Italian | Read full review
Total Chaos brings enough to the table to be worth trying, despite minor issues that may affect your enjoyment depending on how much they matter to you. For the most part, though, it's a challenging survival horror experience that's well-designed and consistently focused on building fear and tension.
Total Chaos is rough, strange, and stubborn in all the right ways.It's the kind of horror game that lingers because it feels genuinely lived-in, and If you're willing to meet it on its own terms, it gets under your skin and stays there.
Total Chaos' remake can be orthodox to a fault, but it's a polished evolution of a fascinating blend of survival horror and shooter that never lets off the gas.
In Total Chaos, we are faced with a captivating story, fascinating world-building, engaging gameplay, and excellent atmosphere. The game's construction system has an exemplary depth that will become your only companion and sympathizer in the isolated world of this work, and the sound design is also a great complement to the horror elements
Review in Persian | Read full review
Fort Oasis is a decaying nightmare where reality crumbles and waiting only for you. Come and be pleasantly scared and fight for survival.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Total Chaos is purposely imperfect horror. And that is exactly why the game is a unique and memorable experience.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Fans of tense melee terror - or old-school DOOM games in general - shouldn't hesitate to check out Total Chaos this holiday season.
Surreal psychological survival horror experience on PS5
"Total Chaos" is a psychological indie horror that trades jump scares for deep atmosphere, exploring themes of madness and isolation. Despite some technical flaws, it delivers a profoundly unsettling experience, even for non-horror fans.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Total Chaos is a rough, visceral survival horror game aimed squarely at fans of the genre, preferring to be edgy and punishing rather than watering down the tension in the name of accessibility. The writing doesn't revolutionize the genre, and some interface and structure choices can be frustrating, but the combination of atmosphere, level design, and sound design creates an experience that leaves a lasting impression, especially for those who love old-school horror. Considering its origins as a mod and the scope of the project, the result is a more than successful title that carves out its own space in the horror landscape of 2025. In essence, compared to other recent examples, it represents the most “old school” and brutal link in the chain: less polished, less narratively ambitious, but valuable for those looking for a survival game that truly brings back the “pure fear” of limited resources, heavy blows, hostile maps, and enemies.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Total Chaos is an example of aggressive autonomous growth despite its faults. Because of its origins as a comprehensive conversion mod, it possesses a certain realism that is uncommon in current horror. With further refinement, it could have reached even greater heights, but even in its current state, it is a captivating and profoundly haunting slide into industrial nightmare.
Total Chaos has an incredible story, starting as a total conversion mod of Doom II and now a video game in its own right, albeit with a few too many bugs.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Total Chaos is a very inconsistent experience that I like far more than I don't, one encounter aside. The atmosphere is incredibly well done with some interesting enemy designs and a fairly engaging combat system that reminded me of Condemned: Criminal Origins. With a robust crafting system and rewards for exploration, there was always a reason for discovering secrets and going off the beaten path. While some may be put off by its weak AI and method of storytelling, Total Chaos is certainly worth a look, given its inclusion in Xbox Game Pass.
Total Chaos storms into 2025 as a brutally faithful reimagining of the 2018 mod, delivering a suffocating story, panic-drenched combat and relentless pacing that eclipse its rough edges and leave the horror lingering long after you’ve put down the controller.
Review in Dutch | Read full review