Trigger Happy Interactive made a lot of fans with the hard-hitting sci-fi first-person shooter Turbo Overkill in 2023. So much so that work began on an extension of the game a horror conversion. What would eventually become Total Chaos has come a long way, becoming a full-blown standalone first-person horror/thriller for Trigger Happy and Apogee Entertainment. The scares are uneven sometimes, and the regular enemy fodder are a little boring, but Total Chaos’s environment and sound design bleeds excellence and it makes for some incredibly chilling moments. An unsettling oasis Total Chaos puts players in the role of an unnamed coast guard character who hears a call of distress and goes to attempt a rescue. On the way to the signal, strange things occur, the character sees bizarre visions, and a storm almost sinks their boat. They wake up on a mysterious island with a towering stone complex, said to be named Fort Oasis. While the structure looks daunting, you know that something inside wants to be found and you’re compelled to find it, no matter what pain it brings. The somewhat grayed aesthetic of Total Chaos works incredibly well with the lighting Trigger Happy chose to employ to create one of the most striking horror games I’ve seen in a while. Once you crack the surface of Fort Oasis, you find yourself exploring the depths of a mining colony, complete with a decrepit town, an underground prison, the tunnels of the mine, and much more. Even more intense are the spirits, monsters, and psychotic visions that assault the player at every turn. Sound is also a strong point for Total Chaos, though this one comes and goes. For the most part, I think Total Chaos’s soundscape is effective at being unsettling. You’ll come into an area where the air noise will swell or a low hum will pierce the dark halls, or any number of other disturbing effects preparing you for fresh horrors to come. I particularly like the element where you save on a record player and the sound it plays echoes after you as you explore for a while. The only thing that bugs me is the directional sound effects are sometimes hard to judge, and grating at that. Things like wire rattling, meat chunks squelching, and other such noise can feel overused at times, occasionally becoming annoying when I was trying to figure out a way forward. These moments are a deep contrast to the set pieces where the soundscape works in excellent tandem with the visuals to create very effective scares. Beat back your fears While Total Chaos’ environment design, sound design, and story convey strong horror vibes, its actual gameplay is more of a mixed bag. At its foundation, it’s a first-person action game with an emphasis on crafting and melee (although there are some precious and rare firearms), but Total Chaos will ask the player to do all sorts of things to navigate its horrors. Most of them were fun, but some felt like they clashed with the overall thematics of the game. For much of Total Chaos, you’ll collect parts and assemble rudimentary weapons such as shivs, pickaxes, and sledgehammers. You’ll also collect food and medical supplies that can be used on their own or combined to address hunger, blood loss, and general health. I liked this crafting system because a lot of items in Total Chaos will fix one thing, but cause issues with another. For example, if you use a stimpak needle to heal yourself, you’ll increase your hunger and cause a little blood loss for using a needle and medication on yourself. Then, if you don’t have clean food or water, you might have to ingest rotten food that will cure your hunger, but hurt your health. Balancing your needs is a constant tug of war in the game that makes exploration and scavenging all the more important. Firearms and ammo work well in this game, but are also suitably rare and I feel like that’s the way it should be. The encounters in Total Chaos range between psychotic visions, actual monsters you have to fight, and some set piece threats you have to dodge at all costs. The set piece monsters and visions in Total Chaos are great. It uses a lot of gimmicks I’ve seen in other horror games, such as a creature you have to maintain eye contact with or it will approach you, but the gimmicks are used well with Total Chaos’ narrative. The creatures and threats in these encounters are quite unsettling, and the psychotic visions often alter your environment in real-time, all making for exciting and daunting moments. There was one in particular where I had to skulk around in the dark with a lighter, avoiding a monster that could only find me by light and would kill me if it did. I found myself less excited about the regular combat in Total Chaos. A lot of the fodder just isn’t scary, and it doesn’t take a lot of creative problem-solving to get around them. You’ll run into zombie-like brutes or spider-like goo creatures that are unsettling the first encounter or two, but these critters often just pad the space between Total Chaos’ big moments and expose simplistic combat where you mostly just bop them to death with whatever weapon you have on hand. It’s a shame, because there’s definitely thought in the combat system too. Evade options, strong hits that cause bleeding, being able to throw your equipped weapon. these are some great things that won my heart in games of yesteryear like Condemned: Criminal Origins, and they still sometimes win my heart here because getting a big hit with a hammer on these wet, meaty creatures is satisfying, but the answer to the fodder is usually spamming a few swings, jumping back, catching your breath, and letting loose again until they’re down. There’s also some jank that’s noticeable in combat, but extends to other parts of the game as well. There were parts where I would see textures pop in where it didn’t feel like they were supposed to, or where an enemy had no feedback to my attacks. In one situation where a creature was chasing me, I tucked into a corner and they still acted active, like they were still chasing and attacking me, but they just stood there even if I shot or threw things at them from my equipment. Total Chaos has a lot of good scares and atmosphere in it. It just feels like certain parts of the game are fighting against that sometimes. Break the mirage of Fort Oasis Total Chaos is a game of extremes for me. I really like its combat and survival elements, but the action of melee and gunplay against the lesser enemies is less enjoyable than I would have hoped. There is also some noticeable jankiness that pulls away from its best elements. However, I was almost always enamored with Total Chaos’ set pieces, environment, and sound. The bigger scares in this game and the build-ups to them are great. It’s not often we see such a thematic change between games like the move from Turbo Overkill to Total Chaos, but I think Trigger Happy Interactive has built something quite fun with this game. It might not always be consistent, but when Total Chaos hits, it hits like a sledgehammer crushing a twisted figment of our warping sanity. This review is based on a PC digital copy supplied by the publisher. Total Chaos is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146921/total-chaos-review-score
