Beholder 3 Review (PC)

The routine is simple: get to the newspaper kiosk, pick up heating oil and descaler, then deal with the washing machine and the boiler. Also, don't forget to take out the trash. After these everyday tasks, it’s time to see whether a certain tenant is at home.

After knocking politely, my character uses his key to open the door and I spent some time looking through his closets and fridge, helping myself to a pair of jeans. I will sell these later on the black market to get my wife something nice. In my own apartment, I use the surprisingly modern surveillance desk to write a report that will get me some money from the Ministry, while thinking about how to deal with an issue that can break my family apart.

Beholder 3 is developed by Painbucket Games and published by Alawar. I played it on the PC using Steam. The game is set to expand the concepts seen in the first two installments, delivering an adventure experience centered on the harsh realities of living in a dictatorship.

The narrative starts with the fast and total fall from grace of one Frank Schwartz. He loses his job at the Ministry after being set up by a powerful figure. To avoid the mines, he accepts a move to an apartment building, where his official role is that of a property manager (almost everybody calls him a janitor). But he is also the snitch in the building, the guy who is paying off his dues to the totalitarian state he lives in by spying on everybody else. Oh, Frank also has to actually take care of the building, which involves very rote tasks, to give him a cover.

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Initially, the spying is limited to giving the authorities details about the other people in the building and installing some security cameras. The situation escalates if Frank performs well (otherwise it’s game over) and he needs to search apartments, report people, collect evidence, sent a few of them to the mines, or even worse faiths. Because being a snitch and a manager is not enough punishment, the main character also gets invited back to the Ministry, in the lowliest possible position. Here he needs to push the ideas of the state, while, of course, spying on his fellow workers so that he can climb the ladder.

It’s grim stuff. But the grimmer thing is that everything is accomplished using a limited set of gameplay mechanics that never feel adequate or fun. Frank can move, sprint, interact with people or objects. He also has access to a menu that allows him to read about laws, pay bills, keep tabs on the buildings via cameras, and file reports to the Ministry.

Beholder 3 features plenty of tasks but the limited ways of interaction make them all feel similar, and the writing can only do so much to promote emotions. Increasing reputation and paying the bills are the only things that are important for the player and I never quite managed to imagine myself in Frank’s shoes.

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One of the more annoying elements of the game is the way it fines gamers for a variety of mistakes. The monetary amount seems too high and can lead to an early game over. But the biggest problem is that there are fines for some actions that are badly presented or should simply result in warnings or the possibility to circumvent them somehow. Beholder 3 has one of the strongest presentations for an adventure game I have seen in the past few years.

Everyone is mostly a silhouette, but instantly recognizable, while the world itself is mostly drab and gray, with some cool splashes of color. It reflects the oppressive world that the protagonist needs to find his way in and the small things that people rely on to get through their day. I wanted to see more places in this world and more contrast between propaganda and actual lived lives. The music, unfortunately, stays in the background too much, emphasizing the loneliness that Frank seems to always feel but failing to enhance some of the big moments. The invented but German-inspired language the characters speak doesn’t add anything to the atmosphere.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion