The underground subway systems and train lines of Japan are, at times, some truly spooky and unsettling places. You don’t know how much you enjoy and miss the sunlight until you’ve been trying to figure out which way to connect to the surface for more than fifteen minutes. It can be a disorienting affair, even if you’ve been in Japan for most of your life. KOTAKE CREATE, the developers behind The Exit 8, clearly aligned with these sensations of confusion and almost hallucinatory moments and decided to make that their game. Their short, weird, and, sometimes, deeply unsettling game.

The premise of The Exit 8 is exceedingly simple: find the titular exit (starting from zero) and get the hell out of the train station. Unfortunately, the station doesn’t seem to want to let you leave today. Around every corner is the chance to experience some kind of high strangeness, or, possibly, nothing strange at all. You have to be vigilant with both sights, sounds and general rationality to detect if something is wrong. Fail to miss an obvious clue, and you might end up repeating the walk all over again. Be exceptionally unlucky and the station may just decide to end your life. Kind of a wide difference in what might happen, but that’s a Japanese train station for you: maybe a little turned around, maybe homicide.

As a first person walking simulator, there’s not a lot of complexity in navigating The Exit 8. You walk, you can hold down one of four buttons to run, and you can turn around and walk/run the other way. You never get sight of the protagonist (though the box art leads me to believe you are a Japanese office worker) and the only other living soul you encounter is a fellow traveler who passes you going in the opposite direction. There’s no dialogue, no storyline that isn’t “get out” and not even a soundtrack to speak of. It is, in essence, one of the most basic “games” that’s been released on the Switch.

Yet the freedom of not needing to think about any other mechanics allows players to focus on the weirdness of The Exit 8, and this is where things can get fun. Sometimes the changes are exceedingly obvious, with a deluge of signs everywhere that make no sense, or the sudden appearance of a set of twins a la The Shining standing down the corridor. When something like this happens, you have to turn around and immediately start walking the other direction: the game will now recalibrate and the previous path is now your new way forward. The really blatant changes are fun and also give you the real sensation of high strangeness: I was pretty sure there was a man built into the wall at the far end of the hall but it’s only when he rushed out and murdered me that I was certain. Science!

Then there are the smaller, more subtle alterations that keep you on your toes. The lack of score doesn’t mean that the speakers aren’t necessary to hear when The Exit 8 creates some ominous banging to let you know to get the hell out. A number might be in the wrong place, or a door (which you never open) is suddenly missing. One time I spent a good five minutes trying to figure out what was off when I realized the wall posters were slowly but surely getting bigger. I think I fled in time to not trip up the timer and congratulated myself on my brilliance. Then I saw the exit staircase, ignored the fact I was only at exit 6 and left, promptly ending my game. Smooth.

As a bit of indie puzzler with a good dose of Japanese oddity mixed in, The Exit 8 is entertaining enough, though it honestly can be completed in under twenty minutes. Players who really enjoy the exploration angle will want to come back again and again to discover all the abnormal moments, and there are enough to give multiple playthroughs for any and all players. As a “horror” title, it’s more upsetting than scary, if that makes sense. The feeling of disquiet as you try to work out what’s off about any one place is intriguing and fun, but there are also very palpable moments of knowing there’s something wrong, but not being able to figure out why. One area I turned and left without even knowing the exact causation, and I was correct, but I could not explain the reason.

It’s a clever little title, handles well on the Switch and comes in at the same price as a Happy Meal. While it won’t blow away critics at the end of the year, The Exit 8 is memorable and serves as a good proof of concept, like how P.T. once captivated players across the world with unspeakable dread. I genuinely hope we see more from KOTAKE CREATE, because, as delicious as this appetizer is, it just doesn’t do enough to fill up any one player: The Exit 8 is almost destined to leave you hungry for more.

 

Graphics: 7.0 A well rendered interpretation of a Japanese underground tunnel system, the levels become repetitive by design but that doesn’t make it any less monotone. The changes can really jump out at you, maybe indicating a need for some more subtle approaches.	Gameplay: 7.0 Good for what it is, The Exit 8 would benefit from the ability to turn on always run just to simplify the inputs and make the error hunting go faster once you’ve “beaten” the game. This thing screams for VR support if possible.
Sound: 7.0 No music to speak of, just ambient noise to let you know where you are and, more importantly, when something is utterly wrong. Nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done and does so well.	Fun Factor: 8.5 Short and sweet, I had an enjoyable romp in a horrific location while trying to figure out what was wrong and to what degree. I don’t play nearly enough titles that really hook into my curiosity, and The Exit 8 did a phenomenal job of keeping me dialed in.
Final Verdict: 7.5

The Exit 8 is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of The Exit 8 was provided by the publisher.