I Hate This Place

Genre: Isometric Horror / Survival Adventure

Players: 1

.

Review:

I Hate This Place is an Isometric Horror game with Survival Adventure elements released in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. Based on the comic series of the same name, I Hate This Place puts players into the role of a young woman named Elena whose best friend talks her into participating in an occult summoning ritual in the woods. As you might expect, things go downhill from there, and Elena must try to find her missing friend while fending off monsters, all while trying to uncover the mystery of The Horned Man, the subject of the summoning ritual who is tied to Elena’s mother’s disappearance.

The presentation of this game uses colorful 3D visuals with a “comic book” aesthetic perhaps befitting the source material but not really conducive to the vibe of a Horror game, joined by appropriately creepy sound and decent but not extraordinary voice acting. It’s serviceable, but I never really felt this game succeeded at delivering the scares it seemed to be aiming for. on top of this, the Nintendo Switch version of the game suffers frequent issues with slowdown.

The gameplay has Elena searching the woods around her aunt and uncle’s cabin, which also happens to be the location of an abandoned and dilapidated underground testing facility, a demon-worshipping cult, and various other spooky goings-on. You’ll be doing a lot of crafting, some base building, and some time management with a day-night cycle, while keeping an eye on your hunger meter.

In addition to the lack of scares, I feel like this game fails on multiple fronts. I don’t ever empathize with Elena or feel invested in the story or the mysteries within it, the combat is clunky, unsatisfying, and has poor hit detection, the game heavily emphasizes stealth elements when it’s often simpler to just run or brute force your way through situations, and the isometric perspective interferes with the gameplay, making it far too easy to miss doors, or too difficult to see what you’re fighting during combat.

While I do think the crafting elements I Hate This Place presents have potential, otherwise this is a slog with numerous issues that doesn’t manage to succeed at just about anything it does, with uninteresting characters and story, lackluster combat, and an isometric perspective that makes the game worse. This isn’t an absolute failure of a Horror game, but you have numerous better options on Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – I Hate This Place is an Isometric Horror game with Survival Adventure elements that puts you in the role of a young woman exploring a monster-filled woods after a demonic summoning ritual goes awry. The crafting elements are interesting here, but virtually everything else is a dud, from clunky combat to uninteresting story and characters to the choice of camera angle making the gameplay worse, to a presentation lacking in scares. This isn’t a complete disaster, but there’s so little going for it that it’s hard to recommend over numerous better Horror games on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C-

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