Greyhill Incident, a sci-fi survival horror built around alien conspiracies, has recently been released on PC. Read on to learn if this tin foil hat-wearing, cow-abducting game is worth your money in our review.
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Greyhill Incident Review and Score Explanation
Greyhill Incident Score Explanation
| Overall | Despite its shortcomings, of which there are many, Greyhill Incident is still a fun horror game that's less of a harrowing survival experience against the extraterrestrial and more of a (supposedly) humorous excursion through a conspiracy theorist's depiction of the 90s. |
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| Story | Though the game doesn't overextend the characters' roles, there isn't much to see in Greyhill Incident, as the entire game is just a slog through an NPC-driven gauntlet of errands. The ending doesn't even give the premise any closure. |
| Gameplay | Armed with a gun and a baseball bat, our main character is tasked with helping out his neighbors as he makes his plans to rescue his son. Although the premise seems solid, the actual gameplay is just a string of chores with the added threat of aliens coming to choke you. Sneaking around dark barns and dim rooms is a solid experience, though. |
| Visuals | The game is as haunting as it is empty. There's only a little to look at other than dreary foliage and the insides of trash cans and cars. Even when you catch some lighted areas in the game, the textures are drab, without much to see. But despite seeming like they're cons for such a game, it mostly lets players feel a weird, but appropriate sense of isolation and suspense. |
| Audio | Aside from the heart-pumping encounter music played whenever the little gray men detect you and other story-related instances, there's nothing much to note. However, this works in the game's favor most of the time, as an almost complete lack of sounds aside from your shoes crushing grass during exploration only reinforces the idea that you're alone. |
| Value for Money | For an utterly blind run before the developers added additional objective markers, I completed the game after just about three hours. That's quite short. Painfully short, in fact, especially for a game being sold at $24.99. |
Greyhill Incident Review
Pros of Greyhill Incident
| Things Greyhill Incident Got Right |
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 Commendable Commitment To The Ridiculous The Stealth Experience Is Great |
Commendable Commitment To The Ridiculous
Regardless of what you feel about aliens here on Earth, there's no way anybody can find a game designed almost entirely around the ridiculous stories and actions of people, not the least bit funny. This game has everything from the use of tin foil hats, cows being experimented on, actual flying saucers, and anti-gravity beams of light.
The feeling of sneaking (or fighting) your way through aliens in a dark field of corn and entering a house rife with evidence of a desperate struggle only to find a kid in a room with a tin foil hat and the American flag draped over her shoulders is a strangely welcoming shock. That element of absurdity on a backdrop of an eerie, terrifying, fog-obscured night gives an alien conspiracy game like this the kind of silliness it deserves.
The Stealth Experience Is Great
The game's visuals feature dreary, empty environments with foliage and residences that could be simultaneously described as both lifeless and full of life. Sneaking around mostly unoccupied streets is a harrowing experience amplified by the game's minimalistic sound design. With only the sound of the character's feet crushing grass and wet soil, a real sense of isolation and suspense is imparted into the game.
This is an appropriate feeling to carry while sneaking around barns and cornfields. Everything that moves becomes your enemy, while everything that doesn't become a potential hiding spot. Players that favor less conspicuous methods are also rewarded with variably well-placed hiding spots that provide only a narrow gap to look through. And even when out of sight, there is still a chance that aliens will search inside those locations, particularly when they see players hide. This adds yet another layer of immersion to the experience.
Even when the game provides the player with a hand-cranked flashlight, they will find that the light it gives is only a detriment to their survival, as aliens can hone onto light sources quickly and efficiently. In a way, befitting our less-advanced civilization, darkness becomes your friend against the technologically-superior aliens who rely on light.
Cons of Greyhill Incident
| Things That Greyhill Incident Can Improve |
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While Stealth Is Great, Combat Isn't Get Used To Being Lost. All The Time. |
While Stealth Is Great, Combat Isn't
While the general setting and atmosphere of the game work well in making the players feel isolated and oppressed in a stealth-focused scenario, the same couldn't be said for the combat experience. Players who prefer solving their problems with a well-placed shot to the head would likely have a terrible experience with it. Combat is just a loop of shooting at incoming aliens, who walk at a pace like they're going to work with time to spare, by the way, and clobbering those that come too close with a bat. And despite giving the bat an unrealistic cooldown between each use, the revolver can also make enemies flinch anyway, reducing pressure from those trying to fend off multiple enemies simultaneously.
On top of that, for some reason, the main character can only use the baseball bat at an appallingly short range. To hit an enemy, or even a stationary set of planks, the main character must be standing near sniffing range from the target. The range makes no sense for a player with a weapon and would often lead to situations where a narrow miss on the alien would lead to a guaranteed game over.
Finally, what are the consequences of getting caught? There's no unique death animation or anything of the sort. Regrettably, you won't see your character get probed, either (insert sad emoji here). Players are simply greeted with the declaration that they've been "abducted," and then taken to the menu.
Get Used To Being Lost. All The Time.
To simulate reality as closely as possible, which is a strange thing to aim for considering the game deals with little gray men and people wearing tin foil hats, the developers have taken a lot of liberty to not hold the players' hands by only providing them with the bare minimum of assistance. More often than not, you'll be stumbling about looking for objects that your neighbors have tasked you to retrieve, as the game rarely provides indicators of where you should look for them. Additionally, your objectives are often only vaguely explained on the pause menu. Were you distracted when the NPC was explaining what you should do? Too bad, you might have to restart from your last checkpoint.
The interface only indicates when looking at an interactable object when the small dot at the center of their screen grows marginally bigger. But for things like destructible objects, the player's only indication is that the item has a barely-noticeable difference in color. This can cause frustration when looking for a hidden object is needed. Additionally, many of those items and even some passageways are hidden or in poorly-lit locations, resulting in much wasted time exploring the area. To make matters even worse, exploration is a massive pain as your character runs out of air faster than a couch potato suddenly being asked to run a marathon.
Fortunately, the developers have responded to some of these issues, as they have already released a patch that added lanterns and whatnot to ease navigation at several points in the game.
Greyhill Incident Overview & Premise
It is the mid-90s. People on the outskirts have a marked distrust of the government. Rumors of UFOs and alien abductions are rife. Are they indeed just rumors? That's what the fictional government in Greyhil Incident seems to insist on, despite convincing footage shown on national TV. But when little gray men and a giant flying saucer appeared and took Ryan's son, all bets were off. Faced with extraterrestrial threats in his town and a government bent on covering up the invasion, it is up to Ryan's capable hands to help his neighbors and rescue his family.
At least, that's what the opening sequences of the game suggest. In reality, the game is just a long slog through boring errands and jarring navigation, guided by vague instructions and an even fuzzier development. The ending is just as disappointing, with nothing being answered after an absurdly short playtime.
It feels like the game was made as a commentary regarding the absurdity of alien conspiracy theories. Though I am a fan of the mindset that created such a curious game, honesty dictates that shortcomings must be pointed out.
Who Should Play Greyhill Incident?
Greyhill Incident is Recommended if You Enjoy:
• Phasmophobia
• Amnesia
• Outlast Trials
If you're a fan of horror games where stealth is your primary weapon, Greyhill Incident is for you. It combines the suspenseful routine of hiding from roaming horrors with its ridiculous world-building to create a pretty memorable experience... unpleasant or not.
Is Greyhill Incident Worth It?
It's An Okay Game... But Not At That Price
Possessing inane fun that can still make skins crawl, Greyhill Incident is a nice game to pick for yourself during a cold, lonely, and particularly bizarre night. However, the game is appallingly short for its price point. It's not a game that's rewarding to play again, either. I suggest waiting for the game to go on a discount before picking it up.
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How Greyhill Incident Matches Up to Similar Games
| Games Similar to Greyhill Incident | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
 Amnesia: The Bunker |
Amnesia: The Bunker is a horror game to its roots. The game lacks the silliness that contrasts the horror elements that make Greyhill Incident a uniquely charming game. | If you want to experience what it truly feels like to run or fight for your life, Amnesia: The Bunker is the game for you. |
 Phasmophobia |
Though similar to Phasmophobia in the ridiculousness of their mechanics, Greyhill Incident stands above the former regarding its gag value. | As a game that requires players to make the best use of their tools, Phasmophobia is one of the best "ghost hunting" games out there. |
 Outlast Trials |
Greyhill Incident is an unassumingly punishing game that threatens to throw players back to checkpoints that could cause a lot of frustrations, unlike Outlast Trials, where players are given opportunities to revive each other. | As a team-oriented game, Outlast Trials offers something Greyhill Incident can never do; a playthrough with friends. That alone puts the former in a position that can be enjoyed repeatedly. |
Greyhill Incident Trailer
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Greyhill Incident Product Information
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| Title | GREYHILL INCIDENT |
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| Release Date | June 9, 2023 |
| Developer | Refugium Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One |
| Genre | Survival Horror, Shooter |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | Mature |
| Official Website | https://perpgames.com/game/greyhill-incident/ |
