The video game genres of "survival horror" and "driving" generally don't apply to the same properties, for obvious reasons.
One does its job by making you feel powerless and small in an oppressive environment where everything wants you dead. The other sticks you behind the wheel of your dream car and says, "go nuts", like we saw in the recent E3 trailer for 'Forza Horizon 4' a.k.a. 'Escape to the Country: Tokyo Drift'.
But "Beware" has come along to try to bridge that gap, offering a gaming experience that aims to coax screams from both players and the tyres of the jalopy they're piloting.
The demo places the player in the middle of nowhere late at night, with plenty of slick, muddy backroads and lonely country highways.
Immediately you feel isolated, with only the buzzy engine to keep you company… until your cabin is flooded by the headlights of another car approaching. As someone who learned to drive in the country, it's impressive just how accurate it feels compared to moments when you actually have been driving down quiet, lonely roads after dark.
It's simple, yet effective. Which, as games like 'Slender' taught us, is perfect for survival horror.
Slowly it becomes apparent that you're not alone, as shadowy figures in other cars try to chase you down and run you off the road, in a gaming experience that takes so many urban legends and brings them to life.
The demo car is left-hand drive and the game was developed in Germany, and the countryside feels very European – but it's still really easy to place yourself in the car, in the moment.
Ondřej Švadlena, the game's creator, wanted to make a driving sim that felt as realistic as possible in terms of vehicular physics. In an interview with 'the Guardian' in 2016, Švadlena recounted his experiences as a child fleeing communist Czechoslovakia with his family in the 1980s, a time that taught him to "associate travel with survival". That concept is abundantly clear in the demo.
The demo is only short so there's a lot of storyline that seems to be missing at this point, but as you can see from the gameplay it's simple, yet effective. Which, as games like 'Slender' taught us, is perfect for survival horror.
The demo is currently available for download at IndieDB.com
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