Game Review: Cursed Feed (Xbox Series X)

Ever fancied playing a version of Paranormal Activity? Specifically, the part in the film where you stare at the cameras waiting for the slightest movement? If so, you’re in luck, as that is what developer and publisher, Playstige Interactive offers (to some degree) with Cursed Feed.

Played from the first-person perspective, Cursed Feed is a walking simulator that puts players in the shoes of a paranormal investigator. You have been sent to investigate the Thornvale residence, the site of a bloody and violent massacre. One seemingly instigated by Richard Thornvale, a renowned archaeologist, upon his family.

What drove the man to madness and what evil now resides inside? It’s your job to find out by watching the feeds of cameras you’ve set up in each room and investigating signs of paranormal activity.

It’s a solid concept and one ripe for a scary gaming experience, which Cursed Feed does deliver upon, occasionally. Unfortunately, it’s beset by graphical issues, boring gameplay, a convoluted plot, and a latter game segment that is as frustrating as it is boring. It’s an experience that slowly gets worse as it goes on, which when you consider the fact that it’s only about an hour in length anyway, is not good.

At first, it’s very exciting. The house is a nightmarish place and those first foreboding steps within are steeped in atmosphere. It’s eerily quiet as you place cameras around, then it’s time to go back to the van and watch the feeds. One by one, each camera comes to life and displays the grisly contents of each room on your screen. You’ll sit there, hunched over, studying every aspect to see what possible horror might be coming your way. Over and over again, for what seems like an age. Finally, something happens, and it’s time to head back in. What will you find inside?

The first twenty minutes is the game at its best, especially as subtly plays a part and you don’t have a clear understanding as to the trigger for supernatural events. Later, with blood pouring out of the vents and ghosts playing peekaboo on the monitors, it loses a lot of its effectiveness. By time this point is reached though, many will have lost interest, and it only gets worse.

It never quite becomes a terrible game, and it delivers serviceable horror overall, but there’s a strong sense that it could have been so much better.