Anglerfish Review

Videogame time loops never get old for me. Over and over again, I’ve been knocked out by a detective in Twelve Minutes, witnessed a solar system’s cosmic death in Outer Wilds, and changed the future in RE:CALL. So, I thought I was more than prepared for Anglerfish, a surreal horror adventure game developed by Professional Villains. Its elevator pitch is simple: the game only saves when you die. Little did I know that I was in for a wild time, as Anglerfish found every way possible to play with my expectations. The game killed me frequently and hilariously, and each run managed to feel unique no matter how many times I failed. Though there are some pacing missteps as you progress, it’s a short and fun experience in every respect.

What starts as a fun night out — celebrating your co-worker’s impending nuptials with a bachelor party hosted at Anglerfish’s eponymous bar — quickly spirals into a bloodbath when vampires suddenly appear at midnight. You play as a man dressed in a schoolgirl uniform (the costume theme of said bachelor party), so you’re not exactly prepared for this monster-filled adventure. The first time this happened, I was in the bar’s bathroom, and promptly met my demise when I was caught unarmed by an enemy. Of course, this death was unavoidable and serves to introduce you to how dying will be used as a gameplay mechanic. À la Groundhog Day, I respawned at the start again, and everything was pretty much the same, but there was a slight change this time. At the bar’s entrance, I picked up a tool that hadn’t been there before and used it to access a room with a shotgun. Now I was ready to face this wild night head-on, and I dropped down into the bar’s underbelly to find my escape.

The controls are as straightforward as can be. You’ll move around using traditional WASD keys across 2D and 2.5D environments, the spacebar will let you shoot your weapon, and you’ll know when you can interact with items when your character’s ears perk up, in which case you’ll press E. The movement is smooth, but you’ll notice there’s momentum that causes your player to drift slightly when changing directions. Occasionally, this got me killed when I tried to quickly turn and run away from a vampire. While there are a few chase sequences where all you can do is run and dodge obstacles, most of the time you’ll be fighting with your shotgun. Vampires go down in two hits if you attack from the front, but if you sneak up behind them, you can defeat them with one shot of your weapon. Do be careful with the 2.5D perspective though; you may think you’re lined up with an enemy, but you'll miss your shot and die soon after.

Anglerfish’s gameplay is a lot like learning a dance, but every time you step on your partner’s toes, the choreography changes slightly and you have to start over completely without knowing what’s different. You’re never prepared and that’s by design, which is why I appreciate that there’s not much to worry about when it comes to combat. I don’t have to pay attention to how many bullets I have (since the shotgun seems to have infinite ammo) and the enemies die easily. Instead, my focus is on figuring out what changed since I last died. While the map is static and there are enemies that you’ll always meet at the same spot, Anglerfish has many surprises up its sleeve, from changing puzzle solutions to putting new enemies where they weren’t before. For instance, I walked down a pathway that I had gone down about 30 times with no issues when multiple enemies suddenly started chasing me. It’s entirely unpredictable since Anglerfish tailors your next run based on how you previously died — sometimes making things easier or messing with you further.

As with most loop-based games, Anglerfish runs the risk of being tedious. The unchanging map, the repeated enemy encounters, the single weapon, and the way you have to start from the beginning, it can get boring if a game doesn’t do it right. In this case, I think Anglerfish does everything it needs to do to keep you engaged. With every run, there’s a chance you’ll be given an extra temporary ability, find subtle changes to the environment, or even be surprised with some delightfully odd post-death shenanigans. Plus, you’ll unlock checkpoints as you progress, opening previously closed doors and shortening the amount of distance you need to travel from the beginning to the last point you died. So it never felt like I was spending too much time retracing my steps versus pushing the game forward.

There’s a small but memorable cast of characters you’ll interact with, including an all-knowing dog that speaks with you at the front of the bar each time you respawn and asks you a variety of “yes” or “no” questions, ranging from meta questions about other videogames to vague enquiries about your expectations. Honestly, I haven’t figured out if your answers change anything or not in your run, nor have I figured out how to pet the dog! The developers did say the dog is pettable, but they also said, “You can’t trust us,” so who knows? There are also two bartenders, one is completely silent (and unfazed by the vampires), occasionally giving you a beer or thumbs up. The other resides in your safe room and gives you the shotgun at the start of each run along with a selection of fun potions to drink and commentary about your previous deaths. Each character you come across is aware of the death loop you’ve gotten yourself into, and they treat it like you’re carrying out a performance, which I imagine ties into Professional Villains’ background with theatre and dramaturgy.

With how often the game subverted my expectations across my three-hour playthrough, the unfolding narrative disappointingly leads up to a predictable revelation. Technically, the letdown did subvert my expectations, but not in a positive way. The way you uncover the story is interesting at least as you can inspect various set dressing and there are recreations of the character’s life in certain rooms, such as the protagonist’s workplace and living room. However, that doesn’t make up for the lacklustre ending, and the game seems to know this as it gives you a chance to find the “true” ending with a second playthrough and a “secret” ending as well.

My only other gripe with Anglerfish comes around the midpoint and end of the game. You will run into some meta puzzles that require you to leave the game in search of answers. You’re sent to the Professional Villains website for a code and prompted to download one of the studio’s free games. There’s also a door that was previously closed until players left a certain amount of reviews on Steam, so by the time I played it, the door was open. While I appreciate that developers need to come up with interesting ways to market their work in a saturated market of indies, these tactics left a bad taste, disrupted the pacing of the game, and ultimately served the studio rather than the players. Out of curiosity, I took a quick peek at the reviews on Steam and saw many that were only a few words long, stating they were doing it to unlock content. This is unfortunately unhelpful for potential players who want reviews that will help them figure out if this game is for them. I suppose it’s good you’re here instead!

It doesn’t reinvent the wheel with its gameplay, but Anglerfish’s dark humour, gritty art style, and weird surprises definitely carry the experience. From escape rooms to dating shows, it was always fun wondering what else the game would throw at me. I found it especially hilarious when enemies started cheering me on after I died five times in the span of a few minutes. On the other hand, there are some gruesome scares that lean into the horror elements of the game, but it's not necessarily as scary as it is shocking. Instead, the tension and looming fear you might feel playing Anglerfish stems from the mind games at play: creepy soundtracks, off-screen sound effects, and unexpected changes. Even though you’re the player — the “important one” as the game often says — you get the sense that you’re a pawn being played with, which is definitely hard for games to pull off.