We often find that the horror game scene on the indie circuit is jam-packed with various developers putting their own spin on the genre. Games like Phasmophobia and Lethal Company have carved out stable positionings in gaming, with many other titles trying to copy their success. Recently, we got our hands on Find or be Found, a two player cooperative horror game from developer Studio Downstairs, and, while the game is trying to stand out from those two recognizable games, it ends up being a pretty typical combination of the two.
Communication is Key
The bread and butter for Find or be Found is its cooperative-centered gameplay loop. This involves you and a partner taking on the roles of a robber and hacker. One person enters a dark house to find objects while the other stays in the van and feeds them information to hopefully find the correct items before the robber meets an untimely end with a ghost. Communication is everything in this game, but there are definitely twists along the way that will make that more difficult.
The robber role puts you in the prime position to meet the horrors that lurk within the house head on as you search for valuables. You are tasked with digging through the mountains of debris and junk left behind by former tenants, finding very specific items that bear the correct symbol and form factor to earn you money when it is turned in at the van. When rotating the objects, you will see each one is branded with a mysterious symbol that narrows down your search, but finding that right item can be quite stressful when on the run from ghosts.
The hacker role consists of you becoming the guiding eye for your teammate that enters the haunted estate in search of items tucked away in these haunted halls. Your main objectives consist of giving your partner the possible locations to the proper items you’re after by looking at the reference chart provided to you on a clipboard and computer in the van. Just because you’re in the van, doesn’t mean you are immune from facing your own challenges. You will consistently have to restore your radio connection and reboot your computer and log back in to give your teammate information. This is the part of the game that seemed to happen far too frequently while we were on a mission with our team losing comms practically every few minutes.
The hacker is also the last person to make sure the robber found the right items by comparing it to what the computer shows them. If you accept the right items, you earn money to pay your debt, with extra money being put in your bank that you can use on buying items to help you on future levels.
The Good, the Bad, and the Scary
The ghost is what should always take center stage when talking about horror games, but to our surprise, when we embarked on our first run, he was nowhere to be found. This is an aspect of the game that we can’t really understand why no threat is present upon your very first run. Sure, there were jumpscares and loud noises that can spook you if caught off guard, but after you realize there is no danger, the game quickly gets very boring and stagnant, totally becoming a matter of the hacker resetting the radio and computer constantly and the robber walking scot-free in the dark.
When you begin a game, a 15-minute timer is slowly counting down in the van for the hacker, but while we were expecting the worst to happen when it reached zero, we were just met with a constant beeping that wielded nothing of value. We were able to run through the cluttered house for a long time just finding the endless amount of item objectives that constantly pop up on the van screen.
While the first entrance was always very boring, things changed quickly on the second level. This is where we finally crossed paths with the illusive ghosts that were hunting us, but while this added the horror element back into the game, we were consistently instantly dying with no idea that the ghost was approaching us. A lot of that can be chalked up to being new at the game, and maybe things get a lot better as you learn the ins-and-outs of how to manage when the ghost is on the prowl, but we found it rather frustrating. The hacker role does grant you the ability to stall the spirit in his tracks through means of a stun shock on the cameras, which can be useful if we caught the ghost in time, but we struggled doing that.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, we can liken Find or be Found to a mix of Lethal Company and Phasmophobia. It’s got a little more to it than just that, but it didn’t knock our socks off. While the concept and communication aspects of the game are fun, we would prefer to play those other games with more friends.
