Death Omen Is A Short Psychological Horror Sure To Haunt You

Face Your Inner Demons

I enjoy horror games, and I have quite a few in my collection. Something about them has always appealed to me, and despite them causing my heart to nearly burst from my chest at times, I always go back to them. However, I also know certain horror games exist that legitimately unnerve me on a deeper level. Death Omen is one such game.

Psychological horror is a whole different ballpark of horror. It takes control of the situation from the player and forces you to not only conquer the fears in the game but also in your mind. Death Omen starts slow and with little direction on how to proceed, which masterfully creates a false sense of security in your environment. Tasked with watching cameras as your job (hello, Freddy Fazbear) you earn money to order supplies you need, like food, medicine, and a not-so-helpful flashlight. As you become familiar with the house and where things are you begin to forget for a moment that Death Omen is, in fact, a horror game. But don’t worry, it will remind you as soon as you find that wifi dongle so you can start earning the money you need for medication, that even in your mind…you are not alone.

Death Omen places you in the shoes of someone dealing with depression, death and other issues that plague their mind as they struggle to differentiate between reality and what's in their mind, requiring the player to manage their sanity at intervals of high stress. The binaural sounds add to the tension as you begin to hear things in the distance and, at some point can no longer differentiate between the background thumping in the game or the sound of your heartbeat as you begin to feel the anxiety your character is feeling. As the story progresses more events start to happen around you from seeing things on the cameras to your character experiencing what seems like sleep paralysis and other episodes.

Death Omen does what it sets out to do masterfully and doesn’t try to be anything else. It slowly draws you in and forces you to face your demons even with its short playtime. It's a slow descent into madness with the scariest thing known to man, your mind. Death Omen is available now on Steam.

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