Phantaruk

It's a fairly standard space horror game. The tension is strong and keeps you on edge, but the constant repetition starts to wear thin. That push and pull is both its biggest appeal and its biggest drawback.

It has a mediocre sci-fi horror plot, which would be fine, but making a stealth game without the ability to lean around corners? ♥♥♥♥ no. Also getting hit 2 times and its game over - when spotted it's easier to just get killed than to run. Also no idea how exactly the clone enemies work, because i literally could walk around them within 1 metres range, and then suddenly one attacks me. Ugh.

Phantaruk is a sci-fi horror game that tries to capture that “trapped on a spaceship with something hunting you” feeling, and for a while it actually does a decent job of building tension. You wake up alone on a deteriorating research vessel, dealing with limited resources, locked doors, and something hostile roaming the corridors. The atmosphere is the main highlight here - dark, claustrophobic environments, flickering lights, and constant uncertainty about what’s around the next corner. The game leans heavily into survival horror mechanics like managing resources, avoiding threats, and slowly uncovering what went wrong on the ship. When it works, it creates some genuinely tense moments where you’re trying to stay quiet, conserve supplies, and not get caught. Unfortunately, the experience is held back by a lot of rough edges. The enemy AI and stealth systems can feel inconsistent, and trial-and-error gameplay sometimes replaces actual tension. Instead of carefully planning your survival, you can end up just repeating sections until things go right. The good: - Strong sci-fi horror atmosphere - Claustrophobic spaceship setting works well - Some genuinely tense stealth moments - …

4/10 - Unfortunately, the levels are very confusing and the enemies are unforeseeable. They simply turn around at certain points, can see you through barriers from a great distance, or are standing right behind a door without you being able to see them before you open it. You also can't effectively peek around corners. As soon as they spot you, the enemies hunt you down throughout the entire level, and you die after just two hits. Then reload at the checkpoint and try again.

This game sucks so bad. I tried to force myself to play it, but I just can't. When I managed to beat the first level, I was like "Oh, thank God, the game is finally over." But then I realized that it was only the first level and that there were probably 10-15 more levels. I haven't played this game in so many months, I can't recall exactly everything that I hated about it. But I will try to recall some things. Every single room and area in the game felt as if it had the same textures and objects. Even if the rooms were slightly different, they all still felt the same. It was like walking in the same room over and over and over again. Each room or area only has like one or two assets that were duplicated a dozen times. The lighting was pretty bad. I had to install a ReShade, but even with the ReShade I could not get the shadows and lighting to look good. The game pretty much involves you running from Point A to Point B as fast as possible because your infection is steadily and quickly increasing and the only way to get it back down is to explore a new area and get a new antidote. And in addition, you have to sneak around some enemies that quiet honestly you can probably just outrun…

Phantaruk is fine. The game has some nicely crafted areas to explore and the atmosphere is quite well done! The game feels a lot like Alien Isolation on a budget, which is fine for this pricepoint. The game is quite short, but I think thats a good thing. The AI of the phantaruk can get a bit tiring after a while and the monster unfortunatly is not that scary. The story was also fague, but that could just be my fault. All in all, if you have some time to spare and like Sci-fi horror and alien games, then yea sure, go for it. It will be worth your 2/3 hours