‘Daylight’ packs some scares, but gets repetitive far too quickly

If I needed my own cellphone to navigate my way through the disturbing, haunted, incredibly hard-to-traverse psychiatric hospital setting that is “Daylight,” I wouldn’t have lasted long. But you know what? That would have been OK with me. Because if there’s something more terrifying than being tormented by deadly spirits while you’re out of live-defending flares, it’s getting aggravatingly lost for more than an hour in what amounts to a spooky labyrinth.

Don’t get me wrong: Part of the appeal of Zombie Studios’ “Daylight” lies in the fact that you will get lost, that the hallways will start to look alike, leaving you confused and on edge. But it doesn’t take long for that constant fear to give way to frustration and outright anger as you proceed through the randomly generated maze map. Combine that with a simplistic find-the-required-items set-up, and you’ll finish the game glad it didn’t take longer.

In “Daylight,” you find yourself alone in a desolate, cluttered hospital armed only with your cellphone and a male voice telling you to move forward in ever-increasingly cryptic advice/narration. The creaks and groans that emanate as you proceed as truly frightening, causing you to jump or hold your breath as you open the next door. Behind which, sometimes, will be randomly moving objects or mysterious glowing glyphs.

You, as Sarah, must use your cellphone (which serves as your minimap and becomes more filled out as you explore) and its light to navigate this maze, solving some puzzles and using glow sticks and flares to light up your way and defend yourself against the shadows, respectively. Why you wake up here with no memory is something you have to figure out as you go.

However, despite a brilliantly creepy atmosphere and a solid structural foundation, “Daylight” fails to hold your attention or generate any real interest-grabbing moments. Yes, plenty of jump scares abound, most of which are the enemies (Shadows) slowly moving toward you, ghostly arms stretched out just ready to murder you. But once you get lost trying to figure out where to go, you’re just not that scared by them anymore. That, plus enough box-pushing puzzles to make you want to become a ghost yourself because you just can’t go on with live if you have to complete one more mind-numbing sequence.

But those puzzles at least break the tedium of trying to locate remnants scattered around the hospital, during which you’re accosted by the demon spirits. Which would be more terrifying throughout the game if you didn’t find a glut of flares to ward them away. (I will say this: When I was first going through the game, I may not have allocated my resources appropriately, which led to more deaths than necessary. That, however, was remedied about an hour an a half into the game, when flares became plentiful.)

The remnants themselves, however, are an intriguing addition to the game. Designed as written messages, you’ll be in equal parts creeped out and fascinated as the overarching story comes into focus. Still, having to search for them using the glow sticks to highlight searchable locates negatively overshadows their engrossing content.

As the game progresses, the level design opens up a bit, moving from dimly lit corridors to forest areas with different structures you can explore. Here, the required searching didn’t weigh so heavily as there were more interesting places to search. It’s really no fun to have to comb untold numbers of hallways because you might have missed something.

A major component of the game revolves around the randomly generating maze (which is powered by the Unreal 4 engine), which is suppose to add replay value. You’ll quickly learn, though, that’s no reason to play “Daylight” again. Having seen everything the first time through, there’s not enough interaction or secrets left unknown to entice to deal with it again.

In the end, “Daylight” has its spooks and interesting story, but that matters little when you want to throw your controller in rage because of poor level design, unneeded puzzles and less-scary-by-the-moment enemies. Which is a shame, because the solid foundation of the game would lead you to believe you were in for a treat. Chances are, though, you’ll feel as if you’re forever searching for remnants, and if I wanted to search for pages while being chased by a terrifying creature, I’d just play “Slender.”

Two spooky stars out of five.

Editor’s note: This version of “Daylight” was reviewed on the PS4. It also is available for the PC.

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In “Daylight,” you’re armed with only your cellphone, glow sticks and flares as you make your way through the deadly darkness. (Photo credit: Zombie Studios)