Dead Take Review | Movie Night Just Got Weird

This role is yours. Will you take it? Will you do what you have to do? Take. Your. Shot. 

Dead Take is a psychological horror game with FMV elements from Surgent Studios and Pocketpair Publishing. In the game you play as Chase Lowry (Neil Newbon), an actor vying for the same role as Vinny Monroe (Ben Starr), in the next movie from a famous writer and producer, Duke Cain. When you call Vinny on the phone, he doesn’t pick up so you go to the producer’s mansion to try and find your friend. 

The game plays mostly like a first-person horror game where you’ll have to collect objects to solve puzzles and unlock more rooms and hidden passageways around the mansion. The first-person elements also feature FMV (Full Motion Video) clips that pertain to the story. Your main goal is to find Vinny, but it soon becomes clear that something strange went on in the mansion the night before - there was a party, but clearly not your average one. 

Duke’s mansion is a strange one. Like all weird rich men (looking at you Spencer from Resident Evil), Duke insisted on having a home full of secret rooms and puzzles that must be solved in order to unlock more areas. The more you solve, the weirder things get. One of the main mechanics of the game involves collecting USB drives which have different “movies” on them that you can watch in Duke’s cinema room. You can also splice together clips to create entirely new movies that reveal elements you need to progress. 

For the most part, Dead Take’s puzzles are pretty straight forward. Find a code, find a key, etc. Other are a little more obtuse, but mostly all you need to do to solve the puzzles is to explore and read everything. The mansion isn’t too overwhelming in terms of space. It’s large, but almost everything is contained to its ground floor, second floor and basement floor so you won’t likely find yourself struggling to find your way around

What I loved most about the game was its atmosphere. As soon as you arrive, despite its large size, the mansion feels suffocating and oppressive. There are remnants of the party from the night before, but other than a few scattered mannequins that seem to move around on their own, the place is completely devoid of life. In terms of scares, I was disappointed with the game’s realiance on loud jump scares. Its atmosphere and story were enough to give me goosebumps all throughout the game, but the inclusion of unnessary inclusion of jump scapes dampened the experience a bit for me. 

My biggest gripe with the game is its story. I was very invested from the beginning and wanted to learn everything that I could about Chase, Vinny and the other characters. Unfortunately, Dead Take features a lot of story threads that don’t really go anywhere. You can get a bit of lore about the other characters from text messages you recieve on your phone or articles and notes you can find around the mansion, but none of it really pulls the story together in any cohesive way. By the end of the game, I definitely felt as though I understood what happened between Chase and Vinny, but there are a handful of other characters that didn’t get any kind of conclusion. It simply felt a bit unfinished by the end.

The performances of both main actors should be applauded. They make Dead Take unforgettable. While there aren’t many movies, they manage to be completely captivating. I do want to mention that when reading about the game, actors Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham and more are mentioned as “cameos” but they only appear in the game in photographs. If you’re expecting to see clips of your favorite actors in the game, you might be disappointed. 

I really enjoyed playing Dead Take despite my handful of gripes. Ben Starr and Neil Newbon are absolute stars and had fantastic performances. Aside from the FMV elements, the game felt like a well polished first person psychological horror. I only wish there had been a bit more detail about the more minor characters to wrap everything up and help make sense of the overall story. Dead Take is well worth a one-time play through. With a four hour run time, it won’t take you long to uncover the many secrets hidden in the mansion.

Breakdown

Game: Dead Take

Developer: Surgent Studios

Publisher: Pocketpair Publishing

Availability: PC

Game Length: 4-5 hours

Reviewed on PC

Final Thoughts

Dead Take has a great atmosphere, some interesting puzzles and truly incredible performances from its leading actors. Its story is a bit strange and while the main path is moderately easy to understand, it felt like there were many threads left tangled. With less cheap and sudden jump scares and a bit more detail about its characters, Dead Take could be really incredible. I enjoyed playing it, but I was left feeling a bit hungry for more.