DaRmaZat Developed by the five-person Swedish studio Wych Elm, Silver Pines is a haunting 2.5D survival horror Metroidvania that blends neo-noir mystery with creeping dread and a striking, fever-dream atmosphere. What begins as a simple detective mystery gradually spirals into something far more surreal and nightmarish, drawing you deeper into an unsettling world that evokes the strangeness of Twin Peaks, Silent Hill, and even Alan Wake.
Right from the opening scene, Silver Pines grips you by the throat with its dark, enigmatic plot. You step into the shoes of Red Walker, a private investigator suffering from amnesia, hired by a mysterious client named Mr. Jackman. While the exact nature of their relationship remains shrouded in mystery, your immediate objective is clear: track down missing musician Eddie Velvet. Your initial clues await in a dossier in your car, pointing toward your first location: the Crimson Bear Motel. As ominous as the name sounds, the place looks every bit as terrifying in person.
Answers arrive slowly, and gaining new information only makes you question what is actually real. Surreal, anthropomorphic creatures and grotesque monstrosities soon start attacking you on sight, leaving you desperate to figure out what happened to this town and how Eddie Velvet connects to it all. The town of Silver Pines itself plays a major role in building the tension: a forgotten, gloomy, godforsaken backwater where you can practically feel the intrigue hanging in the dark sky. During an early objective that involves fiddling with the reception on an old analog radio, an emergency channel warns of an impending storm and an evacuation warning for the region. Heavy rain soon splatters across the screen, adding to the sense of isolation and foreboding. If, like me, you enjoy Twin Peaks-style noir thrillers, the setup hooks you instantly.
Silver Pines‘ gameplay that accompanies this eerie setting is nearly as solid as the atmosphere, although there are a few rough edges. For the most part, you’re in for a classic survival horror treat reminiscent of early Resident Evil and Silent Hill entries. Corridors and pathways are frequently secured with rusted padlocks, forcing you to hunt down keys or force your way through certain barriers using weapons such as box cutters, handguns, or shotguns. Because weapons deteriorate with use, repair kits and duct tape become essential finds. Both reloading and repairing equipment trigger timed minigames. While this significantly heightens the tension, you can toggle the mechanic off in the accessibility settings.
Walker can also be beefed up by equipping artifacts that boost his stamina, health, or damage output. Beyond searching for keys, ammo, notes, and numerical codes, you occasionally purchase supplies from old-fashioned vending machines using coins found along the way. Managing your cramped inventory requires constant discipline until you unlock additional slots. Crafting stays pleasantly straightforward, while items that can be combined light up blue in your inventory, making it easy to see which objects work together.
For me, the puzzles hit a sweet spot. Designed as traditional logic tests, they require genuine thought without halting progress through arbitrary guesswork. You just need to pay attention and keep your head in the game. Conversely, your camera, which adds photographs to the map, feels largely redundant given the abundance of smaller maps and the clarity of the main map.
Where the experience stumbles a bit is in its save system and combat. Saving requires finding payphones that are spread rather far apart and inserting a coin to dial out. Fortunately, you get your coin back after saving, but the distance between phones turns exploration into a high-stakes gamble. You’ll often be tempted to complete several objectives in the same area before making the long trek back to save. This adds to the tension, as wandering monsters remain a constant threat, and dying before you reach a payphone means having to repeat everything you’ve done since your last save. The excessive backtracking, however, can wear thin.
Some of the controls are a little awkward too, occasionally bordering on impractical. You may have to crouch by pressing the left stick while simultaneously swinging your knife or firing a weapon, all while aiming with the right stick. Trying to coordinate these inputs in the middle of a fight feels unnecessarily cumbersome. Walker also has a dodge move that, when timed correctly, lets you evade incoming attacks even when you no longer have a functioning weapon. It’s a useful option, but it doesn’t make combat itself any less clunky. Boss fights are another sore spot, often feeling tedious rather than tense. They’re easily the weakest part of the game. Fortunately, Silver Pines offers four difficulty settings, making it accessible to a wide range of players. Being able to adjust the difficulty goes some way toward making the clunky combat more bearable.
Visually, the game is a genuine gem. Its 2.5D presentation feels remarkably modern thanks to its distinctive, uncanny rotoscoped animations, with some genuinely impressive cinematic sequences thrown in for good measure. Beyond the striking visuals, the phenomenal soundscape and solid voice acting make the characters and their interactions feel even more mysterious and surreal. Silver Pines‘ atmosphere is simply superb and easily the game’s strongest asset. At times, you genuinely feel as though you’re caught in a fever dream, and it’s this combination of unsettling visuals, excellent audio design, and bizarre characters that makes the game’s universe so compelling.
Final Thoughts
Despite its clunky combat and some tedious boss fights, Silver Pines succeeds where it matters most. Its intriguing characters, eerie setting, and superb atmosphere make the investigation genuinely compelling, while the striking rotoscoped art style, phenomenal soundscape, and solid voice acting give the game a personality of its own. The puzzles are well-balanced, and limited resources help keep the experience tense without making it feel like a chore. Ultimately, Silver Pines is an engrossing experience that largely makes up for its mechanical shortcomings, minor as they may be.
Additional Information
Release Date: October 8, 2026
Reviewed On: PC. Download code provided by the publisher and PR agency.
Developer: Wych Elm
Publisher: Team 17
Relevant Links: Available on Steam.
