Kholat Reviews
Simply put, Kholat fails to properly balance its moody aesthetics while keeping the player actively invested. It is yet another case of an experience that is beautiful to witness, but boring to actually engage in.
Kholat had a lot of potential, but is unfortunately hard to enjoy, due to frustrating gameplay and hard to decipher orienteering mechanics. It will appeal to the odd soul, who will fall in love with its disturbing and maze-like mountaintop setting, but most will come away annoyed.
Horror and walking sims are my two favorite genres in the medium, but Kholat serves as another unfortunate reminder that they don't belong together.
Grievously weighed down by its unforgiving orienteering mechanic, tedious gameplay and frame-rate issues, Kholat is more likely to leave you with your head aching rather than your head spinning.
It's a shame because Kholat has one of the best horror game set-ups we've seen for quite some time. Not only that, the team at IMGN.PRO has clearly put effort into sculpting an spooky collection of vistas each dripping in atmosphere. Sadly, wedged between these tense moments is way too much filler. The mind-numbing map reading and navigation would have been easy to overlook if that only made up a small portion of the game. Instead, it forms this drab and unappealing bedrock that threatens to drag Kholat down whenever there isn't something scripted happening on-screen.
Kholat's poor attempts to creep and confound you fail to capitalize on its terrific premise.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident might have been a fascinating story that could have inspired a superb horror game if fallen into the right hands, but Kholat misses the mark. The boring gameplay, graphical downgrades, poor framerate and complete lack of “horror” resulted in an unsatisfying experience.
It's a disappointment to see something squander such potential.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but I love and hate this game all at once.
Kholat does a fantastic job at creating a tense, moody atmosphere in which you're completely alone in an unforgiving landscape. However for everything the game does right there is an equal flaw to break player immersion. The grizzly tail of a real life a real life incident immediately draws you in, but the narrative is often perplexing leaving you with a lot of unanswered questions. The open-world environment is realistic, beautiful and calls on your adventurous side, but the gameplay is overly simplistic and exploration is tediously long.
Kholat brings the atmosphere, but makes you wish you had brought your own compass.
Kholat quite likely captures what it would be like to be lost in the snowy mountains, but games are meant to be enjoyed, not merely 'survived.' With such an interesting story and a great narrator, Kholat truly dropped the ball in what could have been a great narrative, instead delivering nonsense dialogue and an incomprehensible plot.
A certain type of player will find a lot to enjoy in simply puzzling out their location and trekking toward the objectives.
Visually stunning but a slog to play through
KHOLAT nails the experience of being atop a snowy mountain during volatile conditions, and the idea of it being based on a true story is intriguing. Ultimately, though, the execution falls short and you're left with a shallow experience that is hard to find the fun in.
A horror title, with hardly any moments of dread, which has been seemingly written by a person who's behind WWE promos.
For its price, Kholat is a pretty enjoyable experience, and I'd certainly recommend picking it up if you can find it on a Steam sale, but do note that Kholat is one of those games that requires willpower to keep playing. It's easy to put down, but a work of art of a horror game when you don't.
Kholat may be daunting to approach at first with its massive scale, but its eerie setting is worth exploring for its intentionally perplexing narrative and unsettling visual and aural atmosphere. The simplistic gameplay may turn some off with how tedious exploration can become with few scares and long stretches of nothing, but if you choose to remain steadfast on this trail, the sights, sounds, and story may very well be worth your effort.
Kholat's narrative exploration is ambitious, and the real world base for its plot, the recreation of exploring a bewildering and unforgiving landscape and the audio-visual design were all superb. But for what it gets right, the mounting flaws in its design only become more evident and distracting.
If you're really, truly desperate for a new adventure-horror game in the vein of Dear Esther and you consider yourself to literally have the patience of a saint, at the very least Kholat will look and sound pretty as you play it. Anyone who doesn't want to deal with tedious gameplay, a confusing story, or frustrating progress roadblocks however should steer clear.