Is this survival horror hollow?

A tech-noir survival horror short story, set in the urban decay of a long abandoned British city. Solve environmental puzzles, manage limited resources and fight for a way to escape beyond the wall.

Once you start playing Hollowbody, you’ll get Silent Hill/Resident Evil vibes. It has an option for fixed camera angles or free-roaming along with modern and tank controls. It has a PS1/PS2 look to it as well, so it looks and has a retro style to it throughout.

At its heart, it’s a love letter to old-fashioned survival horror. Limited resources, puzzles and enemies to defeat. The melee combat is a bit awkward, but the rest is easy enough to get to grips with, especially if you are a veteran of the classic survival horror genre.

You will need to replay the game a few times to get the different endings as well, so there’s incentive to go through it more than once. The story is engaging so it’s worth the journey. The game originally came out on PC back in September 2024, so it’s taken a while to reach consoles and while I didn’t play the PC version, the PS5 version does well overall.

The visuals have that PS1/PS2-era look for that classic Silent Hill-style, while the framerate is solid and I didn’t come across any glitches during my playthrough. The sound direction is impressive too with some decent voice acting and great atmospheric tunes throughout.

The Verdict

Hollowbody is a nice love letter to the likes of Silent Hill, but it doesn’t provide anything new to the genre. Sometimes though, a game doesn’t need to. They say imitation is the finest form of flattery and Hollowbody does this in spades, while providing a great survival horror experience from start to finish.

Score: 7.5