If there’s one thing I’ve always wanted is a brand-new Dino Crisis game in the same vein as the Resident Evil remakes. A highly polished and terrifying horror experience that will take the cult classic franchise and bring it into the new era. Code Violet, from the same team behind such masterpieces as Quantum Error and Son and Bone, has propped itself up to be the next big thing. Booting up Code Violet for the first time, I was hit with a huge wave of buyer’s remorse. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, but I felt a duty to do it anyway. The worst case is I get a game so bad it’s good, but there is a chance TeamKill Media have learned from their past games and will deliver something surprising, right? They didn’t.

Story

Set in the far future, the Earth has become uninhabitable, and the human race faces extinction. In an effort to save humanity, Violet Sinclair is pulled from the past using time-travel technology, but something has gone wrong in the future: an experimental lab has been overrun by dinosaurs. As Violet, you must rescue your squad and survive the dinosaur onslaught. All the while, uncovering the truth of the experiments.

The story tries to take itself way too seriously, and that’s arguably where it shines. It’s not aware of how ridiculous its own premise is. It features some terribly written characters that make it incredibly tough to care about their struggles or personal motivations, and plot twists that make the Fatal Frame franchise look tame by comparison. It’s not by any means a good story, but it’s stupid enough to be entertaining, with awful cutscene direction and not a single likeable character in sight. 

To give Code Violet some credit here, there are some interesting elements to the story, and the themes it attempts to tackle are interesting enough. Text logs that scatter the world fill in some gaps and add layers to the story, but the character writing, dialogue, and plot progression completely miss the mark here.

Gameplay

Code Violet is a third-person survival horror game with a heavy emphasis on action, resource management and some slight stealth mechanics that show its head for some reason. A self-proclaimed spiritual successor to Capcom’s cult classic gem. There’s already been a lot of comments and comparisons saying, “if you like Dino Crisis, you’ll love Code Violet“. These people must have been playing Dino Crisis 3 (yes, it does exist) because there’s no way this game can be compared to the originals. 

You take control of Violet as she tries to survive an outbreak of dinosaurs with mysterious origins. When I say an outbreak, I mean there’s only a small handful here, with Velociraptors that come in large and small varieties as the rank-and-file enemies. Dilophosaurus that shoots poison from a distance, preventing you from healing. Later on, you face a few boss fights, which obviously include the T-Rex, but they often don’t provide any significant challenge outside of being a bigger bullet sponge. All you need to do is run around the arenas, dump ammo into the enemy, and dodge when they wind up for an attack. 

Fighting dinosaurs should be fun, but here it’s just awkward, as Violet kind of slides around the room, shooting unimpressive and weak-feeling weapons that don’t have the impact you would expect. Dinosaurs don’t flinch or stumble towards you as you unload bullets into them. You walk into a room, kill somewhere between two to three Dinos and then move on. The biggest enemy, though, is the camera that has a mind of its own, clipping through walls and random objects, zooming in at random. God forbid you attempt to fight in close quarters because the camera pretty much just gives up. At one point while I was playing, Violet got knocked down, and when she stood back up, the camera just kept focusing on her ass until I reloaded the save. Even the cameraman wasn’t interested in these dinosaurs. 

For some reason, the game has stealth implemented, and I honestly don’t understand why. I’m a huge fan of stealth mechanics, but here it feels pointless. It’s always just better to go guns blazing, as no strategy is really required. You can get your hands on a few suppressors, but there isn’t even a stealth-focused set-piece to introduce the mechanics. A lot of the time, Dinos will see you the moment the door opens, as most areas are just too small to make use of stealth. You can use batteries to go invisible in the stealth suit for a few seconds, but it doesn’t make that much of an impact. It feels like a particularly underdeveloped mechanic in an already underdeveloped game. 

Playing on the default normal difficulty, Code Violet won’t give you much trouble outside of a few annoying sections. I completed the game in about seven hours, with what I assume is most of the maps explored. To make things worse, due to the lack of challenge, I quickly discovered that just about every single resource respawns when you reload the save. I’ve tested this multiple times in multiple areas, and it’s not a one-off; it’s infinitely repeatable, making resource management (one of the core features of survival horror) completely redundant. Not like you will need to abuse this, though, as Code Violet will give you a wealth of resources with crafting recipes that will keep you stocked up, and I never found myself running low on ammo or health supplies. Although, this just shows how many issues this game actually has. 

Level design is mostly a series of linear corridors with the occasional open room to explore that hides all sorts of items. It’s fine enough, and you won’t find yourself getting lost, but there are very few surprises here, and the puzzles aren’t much better. Side paths scatter that area, leading to resources or easter eggs with various unlocks for Violet. Typically, these costumes are highly revealing, leaving nothing to the imagination. Though I am a fan of the inclusion of the Dino Crisis Regina outfit in particular, as it helps me pretend I’m playing a better game. The whole system is reminiscent of Eve in Stellar Blade, but whereas the costumes in that feel like a bonus attached to an exceptionally well-made action game, they feel a little too forced here. Especially considering cutscenes revert Violet back to default anyway. 

So, if Code Violet fails as a stealth-action game and as a survival-horror game, does it actually do anything right? Not really. Outside a few creative moments that show some potential, Code Violet rarely does anything engaging. Mostly just a slog of shooting the same three enemy types and dealing with puzzles that aren’t complex enough, but waste your time with tedious back-and-forth gameplay. Yet… there is something oddly endearing about a game that tries so hard to do a lot, but stumbles every step of the way. There can be some fun moments, especially with the game’s absolutely bonkers plot and janky gameplay, which had a certain charm. Yet I would not recommend it to anyone. Code Violet is just a bad game. 

Even though this is supposed to be a dinosaur shooter, there are even more bugs here than in a Helldivers 2 mission. Ranging from annoying to hilarious and even downright game-breaking. I’ve been caught in environments, crashed, gone out of bounds, weapons sometimes can’t be shot, UI elements overlap, and I’ve even dropped dead for no apparent reason on multiple occasions. All this shows that Code Violet is missing a huge coat of polish and absolutely needs more time in the incubator. I would be more forgiving if this were a cheaper title. But since Code Violet costs $49.99/£39.99, there are so many better, more polished games available at this price point. Last year’s Tormeted Souls 2 comes in cheaper and offers a much better, polished horror experience. 

Sound and Graphics 

The very first thing you notice when booting up Code Violet is the attention to cinematic detail that would make Christopher Nolan blush, with a forced 21:9 aspect ratio that puts black bars at the top and bottom of your screen. I enjoy my ultrawide games when I’m playing on an ultrawide screen, especially in the horror genre, with games like Silent Hill f or Cronos, which do wonders to immerse you in the world. However, on a standard 4K TV set-up, it can look too claustrophobic. It’s something The Evil Within tried to do way back in 2014, and the game was mocked relentlessly for it, even by the developers in the follow-up. Combine this with an abysmally low field of view (which cannot be adjusted in 2026!) that makes Violet cover up an insane part of the screen, and you’ve got a presentation that is immediately off-putting and borderline nauseating when you mix in aggressive depth of field and motion blur implementations. 

Rant about the forced black bars aside, it doesn’t help that Code Violet is just straight up an ugly game. Using Unreal Engine 5 and all its tools to deliver something that can be best described as breathtaking for all the wrong reasons. Character models, especially Violet, who looks absolutely ridiculous in the skin-tight stealth suit, feel out of place and poorly animated, and the creatures don’t fare any better. Especially one of the mid-game bosses, which had me burst out laughing. Imagine the movie Weapons with a dinosaur, and I’ll leave you with that. 

There are a few moments when I was actually impressed by the visuals, where in some areas the lighting effects are wonderful, or noticing something far off in the distance in the few outdoor sections feels liberating after slogging through repetitive corridors. Even the interiors can have some impressive moments as they blend the inconsistent and illogical sci-fi aesthetic with more modern Earth decor to create something surprisingly unique. Teamkill Media clearly had some good ideas to create a unique and interesting sci-fi aesthetic, but missed the mark here.

Sound design isn’t much better either. With a soundtrack that can best be described as… weird. None of the tracks are particularly awful, but none of them are memorable either, with different tracks playing it weird times. During the game’s first boss, a weird piano solo started playing that would suit a more dramatic moment than a pivotal encounter with a brand new creature. The voice acting that is also corny, with the delivery you would expect in a game like this. Violet’s performance is mostly passable, considering just how bad the script and directing are, but pretty much none of the side characters can deliver even a fun performance, coming off as completely bored and uninterested.

Verdict 

Code Violet is simultaneously a game that should be way better than it is, but also surprisingly a game that could have been so much worse as well. It’s a broken and uninteresting slog that doesn’t come close to even matching the potential for a dinosaur action-horror title. Yet, there is something endearing about the game regardless. 

 

Graphics: 3.0 There’s very occasionally a glimpse at a unique world hidden behind a hideous mess of filters, generative AI and “animations” that makes One Punch Man season 3 look good.	Gameplay: 2.5 Buggy and unfinished, with so many issues that take a good concept and turn it into an absolute slog to play. Shooting dinosaurs should be fun!
Sound: 3.0 Not much interesting in the sound. Forgettable soundtrack and laughable vocal performances.	Fun Factor: 5.0 Code Violet is a terrible game that is charming to play in a really weird way.
Final Verdict: 3.5

Code Violet is available now on PlayStation 5. 

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.