SCP: Secret Files - Something new...

Perhaps this text is doomed to a specific target audience even before it was written; it is for those who are only indirectly familiar with the SCP series: SCP enjoys fan love even without reviews; no part that has come out has escaped their watchful, pretentious gaze. However, after winning hearts back in 2012 with the famous SCP - Containment Breach, the series took the wrong route. After 2012, SCP plunged into a dark era of low-quality trinkets, not helped by the change of genres, nor the bolted on for God knows why multiplayer. Curious at first sight, SCP: Pandemic did not meet the expectations, SCP - Containment Breach remained the best game of the series for more than ten years...

But the idea that somewhere in the world there was a foundation studying all sorts of otherworldly anomalies, from innocent devils to such frightening things that threatened the world by their mere existence, had not disappeared into thin air. Was SCP: Secret Files able to set a new bar of quality...?

Victim of Reputation

The low-quality craftsmanship did not go unnoticed in the SCP series, it lost much of its appeal - the suspense, the sticky sense of fear and mysticism; the uninitiated gamers associated SCP only with scrimmers, endless, dark stairs, or an equally dark brick factory. The appearance of early SCP did not dispose to study the game's universe, and the project looked more like a cheap scare for impressionable gamers than a screen version of a case in the game's universe. Meanwhile, the SCP Foundation really has its own website, stylized as something quite secret and mysterious, and its content is creepypasta of varying quality and persuasiveness.

Now let's move on to SCP: Secret Files.

Dream job (no)

A plain text splash screen introduces us to the case: our protagonist is Carl Astana, who, quite by chance, one day is offered an unusual job at the SCP Foundation. The job is not dusty, you just have to sort out all sorts of archives and documents.

Coming to the workplace, Carl turns on the work computer, through which we will be broadcast the entire story.

There are records of contacts with abnormal SCPs on the computer, all happening in the mysterious videos the player will have to experience on his own skin. Unlike the old SCP games, SCP: Secret Files does not limit itself to creepiness in dark rooms, but skillfully plays on emotions.

A total of five stories awaits the player, but perhaps by the time of publication there will be DLC with the Plague Doctor, which is also an anomaly in the world of SCP. I'm not going to retell the content of the chapters, much of the impression depends on the final twist, which is not so easy to guess on the approach to the climax. There's the seemingly innocent desert, where a tangle of wires somehow mystically appears every 7 minutes and 34 seconds; and the story of one play, during which a mass insanity followed by a mass suicide occurred. If the previous two suggestions gave you the impression that SCP: Secret Files is drenched in creepiness and full of screaming rye to the screen - no, horror is not on the list of genres in SCP: Secret Files. Although you will squirm in your chair at moments...

Brevity is the sister of talent

The storyline of SCP: Secret Files has a fairly short running time of 4 to 6 hours. But short doesn't mean bad. When I heard the acronym "SCP", I was expecting some kind of Oultluster on minimal settings, but the game managed to surprise me. At moments SCP: Secret Files really resorts to the old ways of intimidation, but once you've played it for a couple of hours, you'll understand that it's not just about fear. The developers from Zoo Game Studios managed to tell 5 stories with different emotional content. In some places SCP: Secret Files looks like a child's fairy tale with a sentimental denouement:

In the other story, the developers do not hesitate to thicken the colors, SCP: Secret Files at this point turns into a natural psychological thriller a la "1408" - when it is not frightening what is on the screen, but the prospect of being in the place of the protagonist:

And now, after catching our breath after the thriller and being sad after the good cartoon, we are already being taken to the drama, the plot of which is remotely reminiscent of "Kerry" by Stephen King:

Moreover, SCP: Secret Files manages to dilute the gameplay with mini-games, sometimes very unexpected mini-games. In one of the stories, a "local" Flappy Bird suddenly appears:

And all of the above manages to interest you with exposition, bring you to an unexpected climax, and leave an emotional residue in just 5 hours. It's even a little sad that the indie game's script gives many AAA projects a head start without stretching the plot with ubiquitous grind.

Verdict

After passing SCP: Secret Files, the conclusion is inescapable. After ten years of starvation on fan fiction, the SCP series finally got a game worth the time and hard drive space spent on it. Fans have probably already passed the game, but for new players SCP: Secret Files can be a starting point into the gaming universe; but don't forget that the game is full of terminology, and the narrative is largely served with the expectation that you are already familiar with the SCP universe, at least in absentia.

About the purchase, the question is ambiguous. On the one hand, SCP: Secret Files is passable in the same breath, on the other hand, SCP: Secret Files has more of an interactive movie than a game.