When some folks wake up in front of eerie mansions, they carefully and quietly explore. OTXO gets you to start endless high-speed gunfights instead.
The Hotline Miami influence is UNMISTAKABLE, I know. The game’s top down, frantic shootouts are clearly drawn from that incredible shooter. This game does take a bit more of a traditional horror stance with its story, though. You wake up without features or memories outside of a mansion. You DO know that your loved one is inside, seemingly held captive by strange presences. Except usually the creepy presences in these places just kinda grab you and stuff. These ones want to shoot you, resulting in the mixture of monochrome and blood red visual style.
The combat will feel fairly familiar to those who played this game’s inspiration, but this game leans far more into roguelike action. You screw up, you’re done. No unlocking stuff to make the next runs easier, either. You show up to this mansion empty-handed every time. You DO make progress to unlocking things that can appear on future runs, but that’s it. So, the pressure is constant and relentless. Playing this kind of action game with the caveat that you have to start all over when you die creates an experience that is INTENSE. You do have the ability to use Focus to temporarily slow time to weave between bullets, but it’s still back to the beginning if you die.
OTXO may seem a bit too gun-focused to be scary, but considering how fast you can be killed, I spent most of the game scared out of my mind. While it is extremely similar to Hotline Miami, the roguelike element and Focus slowdown ability do make it feel like its own beast. And, I mean, I haven’t gotten any new games like Hotline Miami in years, so there’s no way I’m turning down an excellent horror-themed game that plays like it.
OTXO is available now on Steam.
