Back in 2019 we all got to experience the excellent paranormal action-adventure, Control, that dealt with the FBC, a government agency created to track down, store, and study various unexplained objects and their associated powers. Now, five years later, we get a new take on this thrilling concept with Go Home Annie, a psychological thriller that has you playing as Annie, an entry level associate at the SCP Foundation, a covert agency created to study paranormal activities by replicating them. Yeah…we all know where this is going…
While these two games may have near-identical setups, the gameplay couldn’t be more different from Control. The game plays from first-person with a fairly narrow FOV; it feels like VR without the headset, and has you exploring a massive facility full of puzzles and dangers in what many would call a “walking simulator”, but they would be wrong. There are plenty of activities and mind-bending puzzles that sent me scrambling to a walkthrough on at least three occasions – not for solutions but simply to learn what to do. There isn’t much of a hint system or a way to bypass a puzzle if you get stuck.
The visuals are off the charts in Go Home Annie with some incredible level designs, and not just for the government bunker, but for all of the paranormal and out of body experiences. There are fantastic lighting and shadows that combine to create an atmosphere of dread and suspicion of what’s around every corner. Texture detail is insane, and the game borders on photorealism most of the time and my 4090 card was able to run the game at 4K/120fps with no issues, so it should scale nicely for most gaming PC’s.
The audio package is equally as impressive with quality voice acting and all sorts of sinister sound effects that really seals in the flavor of imminent danger. The chilling soundtrack was also most effective in manipulating my emotion state and creating plenty of tension. I was on edge from start to finish, and while the story is linear you never feel like you are being lead around. The game does guide you by limiting your options or giving you casual assists like when it’s time to use your camera to unlock a hidden supernatural item, it will auto-equip your camera.
Expect 5-8 hours of thrilling gameplay, although your time may vary based on how quickly you can solve some of these puzzles. They start tossing in some serious brainteasers a few hours in and it never really lets up starting with a certain endless hallway puzzle that involves a kid’s crayon drawing. If you are a fan of the SCP Universe then Go Home Annie will ask just as many questions as it answers, and if you feel the game ended too soon make sure to stick around for the post-credit stinger that will hopefully offer a more satisfying ending.
I really enjoyed my time with Go Home Annie. It was mysterious, unsettling, cryptic, and downright scary at times. A hint system would have been appreciated or at least a better setup for some of the puzzles so you at least know how to start to figure them out. The game is also plagued by random bugs and glitches, some game-ending, and given the poor save system in use, this can lead to replaying several minutes of the game if you clip through the world – it only happened twice to me, but I see it being widely reported. A manual save system in a game like this is very much needed.
If you are a fan of the SCP Universe and want to flesh out that lore with some truly creepy paranormal gameplay that involves a lot of thrilling exploration and thoughtful puzzle-solving, then it’s time to dive into the bowels of the SCP Foundation and discover the secrets of the Replication Division. You can finish it in one or two sessions, but the memories will last a lifetime. I mean, when is the last time you got to interact with a sentient bathtub?
