Fear the Spotlight

Fear the Spotlight was provided by Blumhouse Games for review. Thank you!

When I first saw Fear the Spotlight, it was during the first presentation that Blumhouse Productions announced they were getting into video games. At first, these kinds of announcements made me skeptical, especially coming from a movie production studio, but I was blown away by the games they showed off in their initial lineup. The first in their lineup is Fear the Spotlight, which was released previously by Cozy Game Pals but is now being revamped with new content, additional languages, and more. Luckily, the game is fantastic, though I wish it was a little longer.

Fear the Spotlight follows Vivian, who is sucked into a demonic version of the school. She is looking for her friend Amy, who seems to have been kidnapped by a man with a spotlight for a head. Without spoiling too much, you will go through the school to find Amy and discover exactly what happened regarding the school and the huge accident that led to the school closing for some time in the past.

I loved the story. Some moments were predictable, but a twist or two really got me. The regular content that was untouched in this new version was more predictable than the new content, which definitely surprised me a couple of times when learning about what transpired. I'm trying my hardest not to spoil anything here, but even with the predictability, it was still interesting to discover what happened at the school. There are some cutscenes, but the bulk of the history will be told in documents you find littered throughout the facilities, and they paint a very horrific picture.

Fear the Spotlight is very clearly inspired by classic horror games, and the visuals match it! It's very clear to see the polygons and edges of each character and model, but Cozy Game Pals went all in to invoke that feeling with camera and polygon bobbing. This means it looks kind of like the models themselves are moving, which was a nice touch. However, as this is a modern game, we also have some great lighting and physics. I will touch more on physics later, but I love how they implemented more modern physics to make things like cloth and interactable objects feel more realistic.

I won't say much more about the extra content. Still, I found it took the original content and evolved it in a couple of ways while providing a new ending that heavily improves upon the original. It is a bit shorter than I thought, but it felt very fulfilling once I reached the ending and knew the context of the original content.

We also have nice little visual effects like the fire, which seeps across the ground, letting off a couple of bright orange pixels at a time, and the TV/CRT-esque filter that spans across the whole screen. The filter and the camera/model bobbing can be adjusted in the settings, but it feels much more authentic with them on.

Gameplay generally takes place in the third-person view, while crouching under some objects temporarily switches it to first-person. You will slowly walk through the school, going back and forth to solve different puzzles by finding and interacting with different objects. There are some sequences where you will be running away from fire or avoiding the spotlight man and sneaking around him, but the bulk of your time will be spent getting jump-scared by little mini demons popping up while walking around.

It is a lot of walking back and forth, which can be a bit obnoxious, especially if you forget something, but I adore the way you interact with objects. Instead of just selecting an item from your inventory when looking at the stations where you are solving puzzles, you will also directly interact with those objects and move them around. You must pull levers, pry objects, open doors, use jacks to move large structures blocking paths, and more. It made me feel more connected with the world since I was the one making things happen, and it felt extremely fluid due to the physics involved in how each of these behaves in the world.

Sadly, Fear the Spotlight is extremely short. I beat it and the extra content in around 3 - 4 hours on my first try. It's a solid experience that I loved, but it made me want more. I usually don't mind shorter quality experiences, and Fear the Spotlight is one of them, but it was so much fun to play with that I just wished we had more going on. It doesn't help that it is on the easier side to solve puzzles and such, but I really just wanted more. If Cozy Game Pals takes this more like a testing ground for this kind of experience and makes something larger from it, I will be extremely happy.

And it is just a blast to play on the Steam Deck.

Fear the Spotlight - Steam Deck Performance

Fear the Spotlight is a fantastic game, and playing it on the Steam Deck is perfect. I spent most of my time playing the game in my bed in the dark, and it scared me more than I thought it would have if I was sitting down and playing on a desktop. For the most part, it runs exceptionally well, and I would recommend two different ways to play it, depending on your preference.

Recommended Settings (Framerate Focus):

The game can hit 90 FPS on the Steam Deck OLED and it does stay there for almost the entire time, but I did notice some areas where battery drain could spike a lot higher than I expected for this type of experience. This may not bother a lot of people due to how short the game is, but it is something I didn't like. So, I recommend setting it to 60 FPS and not having any TDP limit. Fear the Spotlight will stick around 10W battery drain, with a high of 15W when in some areas. This doesn't last long, though, and to make sure it stays at 60 FPS, I would leave TDP the way it is.

30 FPS Settings (Retro):

If you are someone who likes the classic horror games of the PS1 era, then this will be for you! Playing the game at 30 FPS feels great and significantly lowers battery drain, and it's quite easy to set up. In the game's settings, you will change the framerate to "Retro" while making sure V-Sync is disabled. If V-Sync is enabled, the game will ignore framerate settings and just go to the screen's refresh rate, which is defaulted to 60Hz on LCD and 90Hz on OLED. By turning this off, the game will cap the framerate accordingly.

You could also ignore that and just set the SteamOS framerate cap to 30, but you may introduce a little input lag. That isn't the end of the world for a game like this, so you can choose accordingly, but it's good to have all the options.

Accessibility

Other than the framerate, you can change how bright the screen is, how heavy the TV filter in the game is, how much the polygons and camera wobble, inverted camera and sensitivity, sound volume, language, subtitles and their size, clue highlights, and rebinding keys.

The game supports 16:10 resolutions, controllers, and cloud saves, but there are no HDR settings.

Conclusion

Fear the Spotlight became one of my favorite horror games, and I almost immediately played it this year. The story is engaging, even if it is semi-predictable, and I love how you interact with the world and how the physics works. I do wish it was a little longer, and it is quite short and easy, but it's a great experience that I recommend, especially if you enjoy classic horror games.

It also runs almost flawlessly on the Steam Deck, both at 30 FPS for a more retro feel and 60 FPS for a more modern feel. Both are great ways to experience the game; you can't go wrong either way.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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