Macabre Early Access Review – A promising concept that runs out of steam extremely fast

On paper, Macabre sounds like a really solid concept. I’ll paint the picture for you: after being dropped into a hostile wilderness either alone or with friends at your side, you complete objectives while a relentless monster hunts you – one that supposedly adapts to your every move. In essence, the game feels like it’s trying to be a cooperative, open world Alien: Isolation, and while that does sound pretty fantastic when you say it like that, after having spent a few hours with Macabre, I have to say I’m not really sold on the idea just yet.

Get in, get out

Let’s start with the basics. First, you assemble your team – you either go in alone, or with up to three other buddies for a total of four. Once all that math has been mathed out, it’s time to jump in, and the game pretty much throws you into an open zone, giving you a variety of waymarks to pursue and a main objective to complete. You finish up that objective, loot as much junk as you can while tending to a few optional things along the way, then find an extraction portal and leave. The twist, as noted above, is that there’s also a deadly monster stalking you in the wilderness, and it’s constantly on the hunt to try and eat your liver. Okay, I take that back. “Constantly” is a bit of an overstatement. In fact, I’ve had matches where I could collect all my loot, fill my inventory with items and happily jog over to the extraction point without so much as encountering the beast. And honestly, while I do enjoy a smooth run, I also like it when things actually happen in my video game – which brings me to the biggest issue I have with Macabre at the moment: the fact that it’s honestly kind of boring half the time.

I tried the game both solo, and in multiplayer with a friend, and I found that my opinion didn’t really change between those two play styles. Granted, there are moments of mild spookiness from time to time; moments where I could kind of see what the developers were going for. Hearing the monster screech in the distance as the lights of the research outpost begin to ominously flicker was pretty cool for a couple of minutes, and being able to hide inside portable toilets or under beds and tables gave me very brief flashbacks to my playthroughs of Alien: Isolation. And speaking of Alien: Isolation, the same rules apply with Macabre’s monster as well: you cannot defeat it, only distract or temporarily repel it with the tools at your disposal, so get comfortable with the idea of stealthing or fleeing whenever the you-know-what hits the proverbial fan.

Hunter and hunted

But… as I’ve said before, the monster isn’t constantly on your tail, and could even be completely absent for long stretches of time while you go about your merry business, provided you don’t idle around in the same place for too long. The game’s map design also works against the creature: you’re in a relatively spacious jungle littered with tiny outposts here and there, and while the monster can be an annoyance (or a source of fear) while you’re looting stuff indoors, the moment you escape into the open wilderness, it’s fairly easy to lose it among the trees, at least in my experience. If the outposts were more complex, with potential underground sections that give the creature more opportunities to corner you, then perhaps the core gameplay would improve, but as things are right now, it’s easy – and tempting – to simply adopt a “quick in-and-out” mentality when looting bases. I’d optimally want more indoor stealth sections and fewer “stumbling around in the jungle” moments.

A variety of other things also hurt the overall experience: you can’t jump, for example, which feels extremely restrictive in a game like this. I recall several occasions where I would’ve loved to hop over things or even hurl myself out the window to escape the creature, but nope, you can’t do that. Meanwhile, looting is both unfulfilling and unrewarding, as you’re essentially sifting through boring containers that are empty 50% of the time, and even when they’re not, all you find is generic trash that exists simply to give you extra points at the end of the match. Occasionally, you’ll find a useful trinket, but that’s about it.

A silver lining

That said, I do have some good things to say about the game. For starters, the visuals are admittedly pretty nice. The different weather conditions do lend a modicum of variety to the game, and the wilderness itself gives off a distinctly Jurassic Park-esque vibe, which I personally enjoyed. There are moments here and there, especially when doing a nighttime mission, where I felt genuinely unsettled as I walked into a poorly-illuminated research outpost and scanned the darkness for hints of the creature. It’s just a shame that these brief snippets of delicious tension are so short-lived and ultimately pushed to the side by the aggressive dullness of the actual gameplay mechanics.

Mission types felt kind of hit and miss, but mostly miss. Collecting artifact fragments and research intel isn’t particularly thrilling, and having to deal with an overheating reactor wasn’t nearly as tense as it seemed at first. However, I also ran a match where I had to take blood samples from the creature itself by shooting it with a dart gun, which admittedly is a pretty exciting idea for a mission, considering it forces you to get close to the beast. I mean, think about it. During group play, one player could potentially distract the creature while someone else stings it with a dart, which I imagine would result in all sorts of fun shenanigans. Going in solo, I had to think more strategically: I set up bear traps for the monster to walk into, lured it closer by making noise, then shot it with my dart gun when it did ultimately get stuck in the jaws of the trap. It was decently tense, especially alone, and it made me feel smart and capable – in fact, I was beginning to have some actual fun. But then the next match brought me back to fragment collection once again, and my enthusiasm immediately evaporated.

Final thoughts… for now

MacabrePlatform: WindowsGenre: Action, Adventure, RPGDeveloper: Weforge StudioPublisher: Weforge StudioRelease: 09/27/2025So, with a match-based game like this, the obvious questions are: what would make me want to keep coming back for more, and what motivates me to continue doing missions? And that, honestly, is a very good question. Or… questions. The answer is probably still tied to what I said earlier in my review: Macabre may sport nice visuals, and it is capable of building a bit of tension once in a blue moon, but it still ends up being a fairly dull experience overall. To be brutally honest, I simply don’t find its gameplay mechanics engaging enough to be able to wholeheartedly recommend it right now. Maybe with some future improvements and changes, there could be a worthwhile experience here, but so far, my initial impressions have been mixed at best.

Macabre is available on Steam and the Epic Games Store.