Slitterhead Review (PS5) | Push Square

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Slitterhead – directed by Japan Studio veteran Keiichiro Toyama – feels like a spiritual successor to Siren, Gravity Rush, and Soul Sacrifice all at the same time. This inventive, unusual survival horror is far from perfect, with inconsistent visuals, repetition, and some unrefined gameplay systems. But if you’ve been lamenting the loss of PlayStation’s oddball first-party output, this is the closest you’re going to get to it.

You play as an ambiguous, omnipotent spirit named Hyoki, capable of possessing humans and commandeering their bodies. A disease is ravaging a fictional reimagining of 1980s Hong Kong, transforming the public into the eponymous Slitterheads. All you really know is that you want to wipe these monstrosities out, and so you begin body-hopping through the community to learn more about the threat – and bring it down.

The story unfolds over a sequence of days in a handful of small, sandbox-style environments. As you progress, you’ll revisit these levels repeatedly at various different times. You can freely possess most of the people you encounter, and this plays into the game’s traversal; if you need to reach a rooftop, for example, you may do so by inhabiting someone standing out on their balcony and then working your way up.

While it’s not identical, this system will remind you of Gravity Rush. You can leap off buildings and then dispossess your current host just before they hit the ground, switching to another unsuspecting person to move forward unscathed. Some chase sequences, which are clumsily executed but cool in concept, see you quickly switching between a string of humans to keep up pace with your target. There’s even an obligatory stealth system, where you body hop to avoid detection.

But there are contrivances to ensure the mechanic works. Hyoki’s movement is limited, for example, so you can’t float off forever looking for new hosts. Similarly, the spirit often finds himself blocked by man-made constructions, like doors. In some missions,