“Betrayer” – A Unique Open-World Horror in the New World

Until a couple months ago, I had no idea what Betrayer was. Recently, though, I decided to pick it up on Steam after reading a lot of great things about it, and from what I have played so far, it is definitely a game I’d highly recommend.

Betrayer is set in the New World (in the Virginia area) in 1604, with players taking the role of a survivor of a ship-wreck who goes inland to seek help from one of the nearby colonies and finds out that all is not right in the land. A cryptic note left via an arrow on the coastal path reveals that he is not alone here, but that this place seemingly has become a trap for those left around. The nearby settlement of Fort Henry is creepily abandoned, with nothing but empty homes and ashen figures left where a thriving settlement should have been. And, to make things worse, seemingly-possessed Spanish conquistadors roam the wilderness seeking to kill anything and everything they find.

The game is an open-world adventure with horror elements to it, and certainly unraveling the strange, dark plot consuming the land gives it a powerful mystery element that makes you want to press on to discover what’s going on. A mystical bell discovered in Fort Henry grants you the ability to enter some world between worlds where you can interact with the spirits of lost settlers and begin to help them find peace in death and discover more clues as to what really happened to these abandoned colonies. The game is fairly expansive, too, and the area near Fort Henry is just a “small” region of the ultimately-explorable world.

In my opinion, Blackpowder Games has done a great job with this one. The visuals are amazing, the story draws you in, and the gameplay is both fun and realistic. The video attached will show you the first 45 minutes or so of gameplay, and from there you can likely judge if this game is right for you. If you want to see me play more, please let me know, and be sure to check out the game’s store page on Steam!

Also, please don’t hesitate to subscribe! 🙂

Jessica Brown

Retro Games and Technology Editor. She'll beat pretty much every Mega Man game without breaking a sweat.