Review: The Bridge Curse – Road to Salvation

The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation is based on a film that was released on Netflix in the year 2020. It’s a game developed by Softstar Entertainment and the plot is all about six students who want to perform a daring ritual to summon spirits from beyond… As you would imagine, the summoning goes horrendously wrong and all characters are being drawn into this horror story where unseen things are on the chase. The film wasn’t really that good, maybe the game is?

 

 

The game plays out like you would expect. You will take on the role of these different characters and experience their side of the story. The game mechanics aren’t groundbreaking since the game relies on “fetching”-sequences, chase moments and the jump scares we all love and hate. Normally I would say that I like these types of horror games, especially when they can deliver authenticity, realism, and immersion. Talking about authenticity, it’s hard to play the game convincingly because of the bad decision to dub the original audio in English. Hearing another language doesn’t bother me, because it heightens the immersion. However, the team decided to go for an English dubbed version and it doesn’t really help me to enjoy the game. If I had the option to reverse the dubbing and instead hear the original language, the game would be a lot better. This “dubbing” is a matter of preference and for me, it did the game bad. It’s also a bit logical if you think about it… Why would Chinese students speak English in their hometown? Also, the quality of the dubbing isn’t great either as you often notice that the dialogue isn’t really in sync with the audio. The voice acting also isn’t convincing as the voices don’t feel “real”, the voices are emotionless, plain,… totally not in sync with what’s happening. Also, the dialogue between the characters is uninteresting and the character development doesn’t bring anything to the table. In other words, the game didn’t catch my attention as I would have had.

 

.

The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation does look great and the development team definitely used the film as an inspiration. If you have seen the film, the locations will definitely look familiar. Even though the game is visually great, the area feels bland and empty like a ghost town. The environment truly felt “made”. It didn’t bring the immersion to a higher level, even though “realism” is a big focus here. The development team did put an effort into the design of the different “chase” spectra. Every character experiences another ghost and the team made it very obvious that each character is on the chase for something else. You have a long black-haired demon that looks like the girl from The Grudge, there is also a humanoid murderous puppet or even a hungry possessed baby. Even though the design and animation of these demons are done great, they did not really have other features that impact their chase. Every demon functioned the same: run behind you and they grasped you the moment you were near or your character wasn’t fast enough to hide. I feel it’s a missed opportunity. Movement during the chase is okay but feels a bit odd. It doesn’t really feel like you’re running for your life. There were often times that the chases felt like a hit-and-miss. One second too late to take a turn or to hide, and you’re quickly devoured by these demons.

 

 

There are also puzzles in the game but they also feel like they need to fill up the gaps between the chases. I’m not saying every puzzle was bad but some puzzles weren’t designed with “fun” in their mind. In the beginning, you’re trying to find documents in 1 room but it feels like you’re being “played” by your own friends. It felt unnecessary and it broke down the tempo, especially after the fact that you’re being chased by a demonic entity. It was fortunate that not every puzzle felt like a drag and these puzzles did feel varied, or at least the developer tried their best to vary the puzzles. There were puzzles where you had to collect items and set them in order, simplistic wire sequencing, … Simple and not too hard. Most of the puzzles were okay and a great break from the chasing.

 

 

Conclusion:

For me, the game didn’t really stand out from the crowd and the development team made some choices that you either liked or disliked. Unfortunately for me, the approach could have been different. The dubbing bothered me so much and it’s not pleasant to see an option that could change the language of the audio. Due to this and the miss-syncing of the audio/ dialogue, I didn’t feel any connection with the characters or the story. The chases are okay in the beginning and it’s great to see some variation in the entities but even here, they could have made the chases a bit more interesting and added some extra mechanics. It was constantly about chasing and hiding. Some puzzles felt unnecessary and seriously out of place, but some puzzles gave me some enjoyment because of the break from the chasing. I can’t really recommend the game as you’ll probably find another and even better option.

5/10

tested on PS5