Slitterhead review

pcgamer.com:

What is it? A blood-soaked action game where you quantum leap into different bodies to fight monsters.
Release date November 8, 2024
Expect to pay TBA
Developer Bokeh Game Studio Inc
Publisher Bokeh Game Studio Inc
Reviewed on Gigabyte G5 (Nvidia RTX 4060, Intel Core i5 12500H, 16GB DDR4-3200)
Steam Deck TBA
Link Official site

From the creator of Silent Hill and Forbidden Siren comes a game that spits in the eye of survival horror. Slitterhead is a bloody ridiculous action slaughterhouse. True, there’s tons of Cronenbergian monstrosities to battle, and lots of unpleasant things happen to people’s constantly popping-off heads. But this is pure schlocky pulpy nonsense, with few genuine scares to be had in a game where you lob spears made of gore at beasties and try not to giggle at 'blood’ being the prefix to practically every other word in its vocabulary.

You play a mysterious floating entity with no memories (of course) who can possess almost any NPC in the game. You spend your initial moments bouncing between bodies until someone down a dark alley greets you with their head exploding, revealing your first Slitterhead underneath—the game's monstrous antagonists. They’re gloriously horrible, especially when they reveal their massive final forms, as if the designers saw a typical Resident Evil boss battle and thought ‘hmm, far too understated and subtle’.

Luckily, you can fight back with any NPC you possess. Less luckily, most people are easily slaughtered by Slitterheads in just a few hits. So you’re encouraged to constantly hop between civilians, with a brief damage bonus each time you do. But if you die three times before escaping your host body, it’s game over. Slitterhead is no open world game, but its large NPC-packed levels are still a great showcase for this impressive body-hopping tech, bringing back fond memories of the criminally-underplayed Driver San Francisco.

Whacking a Slitterhead in the back, watching it turn its understandably-angry attention onto