Erie drops you into a visually stunning, yet terrifying scenario where your goals are to investigate, survive, and finally escape. It’s first person horror meets intense dark-ride with hidden, rotting cats. Erie begins in October 1966, when the Fermi 1 Nuclear Power Generator suffers a partial meltdown, and locals begin disappearing from a sleepy Michigan town. Oliver Victor is a Red Cross Investigator sent to find missing locals, but quickly finds himself trapped underground and being hunted by a product of forced-mutation experiments. Oliver’s rescue mission quickly turns into a struggle to survive, escape and uncover what’s been happening under the nuclear plant on the shores of Lake Erie. Developed by the University of Utah's EAE Master Games Studio Program.
This review may contain spoilers
Erie does a lot of things right, especially for a free game. It looks nice, it has a unique feel, the controls are solid. Unfortunately, it has massive flaws that really kill it's ability to be enjoyed fully.
The biggest of these flaws is one of it's core mechanics. The monster, a mutated test subject. I'll put aside whether or not it's genuinely frightening in appearance, which is a matter of opinion, and instead focus on what is clearly wrong with it. And that is that it is not frightening in action or consequence.
The monster chases the player. If the player is caught, the sole consequences are a badly animated scene where the monster MIGHT be killing the player, though it's hard to tell. The lack of sound whilst this all happens makes the whole thing seem like an animation glitch than an intentional feature, and the fact the player returns to life at their last quicksave, all items still in hand means it means nothing.
Avoiding this minor setback also manages to shatter all atmosphere the game built before it's awkwardly bad death scene. Being faster than the creature, it simply becomes an annoyance as you try to search for clues and soak in the better parts of the game; it's a reason you can't stop and actually enjoy and engage, instead kiting it around pointlessly.
The game still has some solid fun value, but it makes you work in the worst possible way to get it. Frankly, the whole experience would be improved by removing the creature and turning the game into an atmospheric horror rather than a creature feature.