Blair Witch Reviews
If you’re a fan of horror games, or narrative experiences, then Blair Witch is certainly worth a try. Allowing yourself to be immersed in the experience is key to this game's enjoyment, which perhaps also acts as a silver bullet for its replayability.
Interesting on paper, but lacks tension and is full of technical and gameplay issues and repetitive tasks. Blair Witch is full of unmet potential that doesn't stack up to the reputation of Bloober Team.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
In the end, the story ends up being incredibly cliche and uninteresting, the setting is not all that fun or even all that frightening to walk around in, and the graphical downgrade is just another unfortunate brick in the wall that kept me from really enjoying my time with the game. If these things don't sound like deal breakers to you, Blair Witch may still be worth your time to at least try out. Even then I don't think I'd recommend the Switch be where you do so.
Blair Witch is a great entry into the genre. Fans of horror games, with a heavy focus on narrative and walking, will find plenty of scares and edge-of-your-seat moments. However, those looking to dive deeper into the narrative of Blair Witch may come away a little disappointed.
Technical troubles and predictability hurt what is otherwise a heart-pumping horror with a story worth uncovering
Most importantly, despite a few good scares, in general Blair Witch isn’t really scary enough. It has really good storytelling moments and buckets of atmosphere, but we were ultimately left disappointed. It’s better than the 2000 Blair Witch games, at least.
Blair Witch starts off strong, throwing its players into a setting that comes with some pretty terrifying baggage for anyone who's familiar with the film upon which it is based. It's got a handful of fun mechanics, including the absolute star of the show, Bullet, and its story comes on strong towards the end, injecting the final third with some real tension. However, this is also a game that plods along for the most part, making no real use of its spooky setting, instead hemming players into small areas and forcing them to partake in a string of simplistic and rather hackneyed puzzles and busywork at the expense of any real tension. Overall then, Blair Witch is something of a mixed bag; it's not the worst horror game we've played recently, but it also doesn't do enough to earn a hearty recommendation.
Blair Witch VR should have been the definitive way to play this interesting psychological horror title, but the new limitations overshadow the increased immersion. Admittedly, this is compared to my experience original release, but exploring the woods feels more on-rails than before. Some changes do suit the format, but I would have liked to see more ambition and confidence in the players. As a result, this is an interesting but not essential version of a flawed original.
There's a lot of things to like about Blair Witch, from the way it invokes the imagery of the original film, to some inventive camcorder puzzles and intriguing depictions of trauma, but most of these aspects aren't given the time to really develop. There's the skeleton of a really good horror-based walking sim here, and while it's still worth checking out for horror fans, it feels more like a first episode of a series rather than a standalone game. A missed opportunity; all Woody and no real Buzz.
It’s a shame the pacing does such a number on Blair Witch. It deals with some heady topics like PTSD, mental illness, and police shootings. Instead of hitting you hard and fast and hooking you, it lets your attention fade in between major plot points. Furthermore, it doesn’t use the Blair Witch lore to effect.
An uneven mix of tense psychological drama and buggy, half-broken gameplay mechanics but the end result is still one of the better movie tie-ins of recent years.
A fine take on psychological horror cut down by bugs and wonkiness.
I’m fairly disappointed Blair Witch: VR Edition. Yes, it is definitely more immersive than Blair Witch, but a lot of that immersion is frequently broken by the horrendous pop-ins, clunky controls, and ridiculously short chapters. Regardless of playing it on hardware that is definitely showing its age, that still doesn’t stop the game from being boring most of the time.
Blair Witch is certainly a game worth checking out. Despite a less-than-stellar story, it has a few interesting gameplay ideas and a genuinely creepy atmosphere that few horror games manage to pull off effectively. At a little over five hours long, it is an experience you can go through multiple times. But it’s also a title that I would recommend playing on another platform if possible. Although there are some positive aspects that are exclusive to the Switch version, these are heavily outweighed by the limitations that come with the hardware in the portable console.
Blair Witch has some issues but I do think it is worth playing at some point.
Bloober Team tries to mix successful elements from titles like Alan Wake and Outlast, and use the atmosphere and theme from The Blair Witch Project to create a different horror game. But the result is not as good as expected, as the game starts to get boring soon and has no true identity, with the opportunity to roam the Burkittsvills forest being the only salvage point.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Blair Witch is a bit of a mixed bag. The graphics, sound design, and unique gameplay elements are all really cool, but the lack of a solid story and never truly taking advantage of being a horror property hold it back. Fans of the film franchise will no doubt find something to like here, but it’s not the interactive horror experience it could’ve been.
What remains is still a game with a good atmosphere, which perfectly embodies - at least in the first part - the spirit of cinematographic films, also thanks to some clever and exquisite workmanship.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Blair Witch is an improvement over Bloober Team’s past work and I hope to see them further explore more game mechanics in their titles. Even though they’re good at perception-altering visuals, I want to see them branch out more and more. I think that one day in the future, Bloober Team could release a truly knockout horror game.
The long and short of Blair Witch comes down to how much you're willing to invest. If the journey means more than the destination, you can actually find a fair amount of joy in this adventure. It's just those looking for a simpler experience or possibly more interesting things than watching a video and having something weird happen, followed by some dialogue about how weird that was. So, unless you really want to explore the woods in hopes of scares, this is one adventure you can probably skip out on.