KARMA: The Dark World - Ready to twist your brain and haunt your thoughts.

This game contains content which may not be appropriate for all ages: violence, blood use of tobacco and fantasy drugs.

Pollard Studio LLC - The Developers

KARMA: The Dark World isn't here to hold your hand. It's unsettling, it's weird, it's intense - and that's exactly why you need to play it. Step inside, embrace the darkness and see if you can handle the truth.

Wired Productions - The Publishers

Hello fellow horror/thriller fans and those who like a good psychological trip, Racula here and welcome to another XPN Gaming review!

Brought to you by the minds of Pollard Studio, KARMA: The Dark World isn't just another one of your average "spooky" games, oh no this game upped the psychological thriller factor and I had the privilege to play not only the demo's on pc and PS5, but I got to play the full game in all it's glory and what a game it is.

So let's prepare to brain dive on into this game and see if we can unravel the truth.

Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.

KARMA: The Dark World is a first person psychological thriller, set in a dystopian world in 1984 East Germany, where things are not quite what they seem and the Leviathan Corporation rules with an iron fist.

Controlling its citizens through mass surveillance, social class rules, mind altering drugs and the promise that the gates of Utopia, will open to those who serve.

Players will find themselves playing through the eyes of Daniel McGovern, a Roam Agent for Leviathan's Thought Bureau.

Investigating crime scenes and interviewing suspects, using advanced technology to brain dive into people's minds, explore twisted environments and the horror's that lurk within their memories.

However, the deeper you dive into their minds, the more you uncover and that could include things you don't want to see, or things you aren't meant to see.

Welcome to the Dark World.

For me, KARMA does have some intense thriller/horror moments, like when you are being chased and have to escape, they're not over the top horror segments and don't last too long, but when you least expect it, they sure can make you feel uneasy or jumpy at times.

Not going to lie, even though I played the demo twice and knew what to expect, I still jumped at one particular part and a few other bits within the game later.

In between these moments and whilst exploring around, there are some puzzles along the way that are part of the story progression.

Thankfully what you need to solve the puzzles are in the area you are in, you just need to look carefully and find them.

Or take a step back, relax and come back with a fresh pair of eyes to look at the puzzle again.

There are some out of place, little colourful, puzzles that contain a collectable inside, if you can solve them in one try. They seem simple enough, as they show you the puzzle and the multiple answers you can choose from. Click the right colour answer and the centre opens, revealing the collectable, get the answer wrong and the puzzle closes up and you can't try again. Unless you restart from the last checkpoint or go through the game again to solve them all.

I only had one or two minor issues in my gameplay of KARMA on the PS5. First minor problem was the interaction with objects, I had to be in the right area and position to be able to interact with objects. Second minor issue, was with the opening of doors, which kind of intertwines with the first issue I had.

The motion for the door was a bit clunky at times and I had to move out of the way to get the door fully open, but other then that I didn't have any other problems within the game.

Next generation visuals

The visuals in KARMA are absolutely stunning with the Unreal Engine 5 features, including Lumen and Nanite, that help push the visual boundaries of storytelling, it really helps the game to sell the surreal nature of it.

With combining meticulously detailed visuals of a dystopian reality and a specially created soundtrack, that combines orchestral scores with original songs, the high quality motion-capped acting and mind bending surreal environments, help create a distinctly immersive experience.

There were times that it got crazy with some of the scenes, but they all had some deeper meaning behind them, that related to the person we dove into.

The entire scene could change at any moment as the storyline was told, giving us an insight into the suspects psyche and showing more unique scenes with completely different art styles.

There were at times when listening to the music in the cutscenes, I thought I was playing Death Stranding, another great game with a really decent music score, graphics and storyline.

My Final Thoughts

In all honesty, I have really loved playing KARMA, I can't fault it in any way and the ending, all I can say on that is wow, the game is right up my alley, as I love to play psychological thrillers/horror games a lot of the time.

To be honest, there would be only one thing that would make this game even better, and that would be if it was put onto VR.

Could you imagine doing the brain dives in VR and also being chased in the game by whatever it is that is chasing you? That would be so epic and it would make the whole immersive experience even more surreal and the game would be purely on another level.

If you're like me and psychological thriller/horror games are your type to play, then I defiantly recommend KARMA: The Dark World, the ending is worth it.

Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to take a moment to read this review, your support is always appreciated and means a lot to me.

KARMA: The Dark World is currently available on:

Steam

Playstation

Xbox

XPN Rating 5 out 5