Game Review: The Exit 8 (Xbox Series X)

Featuring psychological thrills and horror elements, The Exit 8 is a first-person game developed and published by Kotake Create. A game that can be completed in around five minutes, but will likely last an hour or two, as you first get to grips with its gamplay and then set out to master it.

It all begins simply enough. Played from the first person-perspective, you are a commuter walking through a Japanese metro station passageway. You turn a corner, barely noticing posters that adorn the white walls, the security camera’s blinking red light, or the sign pointing you to the exit. Nor do you pay much attention to the businessman walking the other way.

It’s as humdrum as it sounds, yet there’s an immediate disconcerting and ominous feel. It’s all so quiet, the only sound you can hear is the sound of your own footsteps, and then you turn another corner, and it all looks so familiar. Isn’t that the same poster you passed? Those are the same set of doors you walked by earlier, aren’t they? Isn’t that the businessman from before walking by you again?

Then it happens again, and again, and again. This is The Exit 8, and you are trapped in an endlessly repeating cycle of corridors. The how and the why are unimportant, it’s all about escape. You need to find your way to the eighth exit, and to do this, you’re going to have to find anomalies.

You begin at 0, and as you turn the corner, you must study the environment (and the passing businessman) to see if anything is different. Should you find something abnormal, turn around and go back, the corridor will repeat but you’ll now be at 1. Likewise, if you’re sure there is no anomaly, move forward, and you’ll move closer to the exit. Repeat this until you pass 8 and see the stairs to freedom.

So, what are anomalies? They can be small (the face in a poster, a door handle, the businessman is smiling) and they can be big (a door quietly creaks open, two intimidating men are standing in the middle of the corridor, a torrent of bloody water comes rushing towards you). At first you won’t really know what you’re looking for, but through trial and error, you will find an escape route.

The game is at its best early on when you don’t fully understand what is going on, slowly piecing it together as those first anomalies are experienced. Everyone who plays it will remember their first as they are random, especially if it’s one of the really creepy ones. It’s hard to not feel a shiver go down your spine when the businessman you’ve passed countless times is now staring directly at you. Nor is it hard to not feel the hairs on the back of your neck go up when a door that is always closed, is slightly ajar now and someone is watching you through the gap.

These are the ‘horror’ aspects of The Exit 8 and along with the overall creepy atmosphere, they are effective.

An important component of that is the lack of music in the game. For the most part, the only thing you’ll hear is the sound of your own footsteps, which helps add to the overall disorienting effect of the game.

It nails what it sets out to do, and while there really isn’t much to do when you break it down, it stays with you afterwards. There’s some replay value (you’ll want to see every anomaly and the game keeps track of the number you’ve not seen yet), but even then, it’s an hour or two of gameplay max. Hopefully this is an idea the creators will expand upon in future.