Styx

We sit down and review I Hate This Place. A new isometric horror title based on the comic series I Hate This Place. Here is our review of the game.

It has been a bit of time coming, and we are finally here with a look at I Hate This Place. The latest title from Rock Square Thunder and Feardemic is a retelling of the story from the comic of the same name. All with an isometric horror view and a little bit of a focus on crafting and base-building. Well, more ranch house building, but I am getting ahead of myself here. The game is out on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC, and we had a chance to sit down with I Hate This Place. So, get ready to face the Horned Man and read our review for the title to see if it will be worth the time and money to invest in a game that is aiming to bring the pages of the graphic novel to life. Let us dive right in.

Story

It is time to meet Elena Rutherford. A young woman who has seemingly returned home to a farmhouse in the middle of a nightmare landscape. One that sees the rest of the Rutherfords stuck in place and some extra weirdness going on with a being known as The Horned Man. There is little explanation for why the family finds themselves stuck in this situation, but maybe it was from a weird occult practice that we saw Elena partaking in, or they were just marked. No matter the case, it looks as if there is even more strangeness going on in the world of I Hate This Place with experiments and other chicanery. It is up to Elena and us to leave the house again to see just what is going on and maybe find our missing friend along the way.

Hated

Okay, for a game based on a graphic novel, I Hate This Place's story feels a little all over the place and hard to follow. Maybe it was how it was delivered in the game, or maybe it was just a little bit of a misinterpretation as it was brought over. As someone who has never read the source that I Hate This Place is based on, I would figure this would be a great introduction to maybe branch out. Sadly, the way the story was presented and slightly changed for the game just never grasped me or made much sense. That might be why the story recap from above is a little off for you all. That is how it all came across to me as I tried to play through the game. Not to mention, as I have come to understand, there are some bigger story beats in side missions in the game that can go unheard if you are not trying to complete every aspect of the game. Almost like when a comic is telling a great story, but requires you to buy an unrelated comic to fully understand the relevance of some action to the larger plot. It was a weird choice and one that left me fully confused and disconnected from the plot.

Placing the story aside, let us have a look at some of the gameplay for I Hate This Place. Since the title does lean into crafting and base-building a bit, that could have been a saving grace to the game. Maybe for some, but to me, it was just more of a grind and something to distract from everything else going on. The systems were not difficult to manage or use, and are probably something others might enjoy, but for me, it just felt like an endless loop of grinding and searching for things with little payoff. It was not something that sold me on I Hate This Place before it launched, and it was just something I participated in because it was needed to get back to the paranormal investigations, stealth play, and combat in the game. I say all of it that way, as I know that there are some gamers out there who absolutely love this aspect in their game, but it was so bland to me that it was barely engaging enough to have me want to do the needed parts to move on. Let alone dive deeper into the system to engage with it longer than needed, as other games have been able to do in the past.

All of this brings me to the last little bit of hate I have for I Hate This Place. While the stealth and combat of the game were the shining points for me, they definitely had their flaws. The stealth mechanic seemed to either work insanely well or not at all, many times in my playthrough, and all without much rhyme or reason. In some instances, I would be able to creep right by an enemy without them even noticing. In others, I barely tap the movement for Elena, and everything around me turns to attack. Even though that was frustrating, it would have been okay if the combat seemed to do anything to the monsters. Many of them are completely unkillable in the game, so you need to sneak past them. Why even offer up the option to attack and kill if there is no way to actually beat them? Especially when there are some out there that we are given tools that look as if they should be able to be used in the situation, like a pipe bomb in a room full of explosives, only to use them and have the enemies laugh it off and hunt us down until we can escape. I Hate This Place was all over the place with that in my experience, to the point I just started playing it as a stealth game only.

Loved

So, the thing that I know made me upset with the story more and more for I Hate This Place all stemmed from something I know I loved in the game. The setting and world we find ourselves in. Both with the darkness and horror of it all, but also with the art style using the graphic novel flavor to it all. It definitely felt as if we were playing out the events of a comic book and building to something grander. Massive applause to Rock Square Thunder for hitting the nail on the head with that. Even the little touches that can be seen in I Hate This Place, like the comic text popping up for certain actions. It definitely lent itself well to the style the game was going for. Many games have tried to go with the style, even when not based on a comic, and they fall flat. This one truly felt like many scenes could just be a screenshot from a graphic novel and placed in order to read. This even goes into the fun little notes that Elena makes and the other notes that we find in the game. Whoever was behind the art direction for this one knew the assignment well and nailed that perfectly.

While I did gripe on the stealth a little bit above for I Hate This Place, I will have to say that the level layouts and puzzle designs in the game did lend well to it all. Even when things were frustrating in the game, I knew I could always lean back on this as we needed to wander about from the blind enemies of the world. Not to mention, it also pushed for more exploration into things to see if there were hidden paths or alternate routes to take to bypass some of the enemies stalking us. Even though that was not always the case, it did make me want to try and kept me engaged in I Hate This Place just a bit longer. If it had been tightened up, or there was a better explanation why some enemies could hear us while completely motionless, I think this would have been the biggest selling point for the game. I am a massive fan of stealth games, in general, so do take that all with a pinch of salt. I just mentioned it, as I know there are many reading this who have the same love for stealth games and can find that part rather enjoyable in the game.

Overview

I Hate This Place is not the most polished title out there, and those looking for a scene-by-scene remake of the graphic novel will be let down. Maybe it is from how it was presented, or maybe that side missions were required to get the story for the main game fleshed out. Just do not think you are going to have it all there laid out, and there will be no need to read the source material after the game. Placing that aside, while the stealth and combat in the game are a little unpolished, they are a saving grace for those who do enjoy a solid stealth game. A solid stealth game set in a very interesting setting at that. Just be ready to grind out a lot of crafting items and parts for the farmhouse before the end of the game. As I mentioned, it will be something that is a grind, but rewarding for those gamers out there who love that sort of thing. That is to say, I Hate This Place is not going to be for everyone. If you want the story, read the comic. If you need something to distract you for a little bit, give it a go. There will be something in the mix that you will enjoy if any of the basics above tickle your fancy.

I give I Hate This Place 27 Blueprints on the Blueprint scale.

I Hate This Place was developed by Rock Square Thunder and published by Feardemic for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC on January 29^th, 2026. A PlayStation copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.