Kholat (video game)
Kholat is an indie survival horror video game developed by Polish developers IMGN.PRO,[1] in which the player controls a protagonist who is tracing the steps of a group of nine Russian college students who went missing in February 1959 on Kholat Syakhl. The game is based on the Dyatlov Pass incident,[2] a true event that involved ten Russian students, nine of which went missing on Kholat Syakhl and were found dead in the time span of four months (the tenth student had walked back earlier due to illness).[3] Холатчахль ("Kholat Syakhl") is a transliteration in Russian of Holatchahl, meaning "Dead Mountain" in Mansi.[4]
Kholat | |
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Developer(s) | IMGN.PRO |
Publisher(s) | IMGN.PRO |
Engine | Unreal Engine 4 |
Platform(s) | |
Release |
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Genre(s) | Survival horror |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
The game came out on the Steam Store on June 9, 2015.[5] Sean Bean voices the narrator in the game.[6] It will be released on the Nintendo Switch on May 14, 2020.[7] It was released in Japan on September 17, 2020.[8]
Throughout the game, the player is tasked with finding several pages, including excerpts from the investigator's report and passages from the journal of one of the hikers. The player is chased by several shadow-like creatures.
Reception
Kholat received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review website GameRankings provides an average rating of 64.29% based on 21 reviews,[9] whereas Metacritic provides an average rating of 64 out of 100 based on 38 reviews, meaning mixed or average reviews.[10] Portuguese website ComboCaster praised the ambient but said the technical issues prevented it from being very immersive.[11]
References
- Staff (June 22, 2015). "Kholat".
- Ames, Adam (March 13, 2014). "Listen To the Community: Kholat Interview". Archived from the original on 2015-10-14.
- Osadchuk, Svetlana (February 19, 2008). "Mysterious Deaths of 9 Skiers Still Unresolved". St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on February 26, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
- Eichar, Donnie Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident (Chronicle Books, October 22, 2013, ISBN 1-452-11274-6), p. 19.
- Steam Store page for Kholat, http://store.steampowered.com/app/343710/
- Smith, Adam (June 11, 2015). "Sean Bean's Winter Vacation: Brief Thoughts On Kholat".
- "Kholat coming to Switch on May 14". Gematsu. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
- "Kholat(ホラート)". Nintendo Japan. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- "Kholat (PC)". GameRankings. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
- "Kholat (PC)". Metacritic. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
- "Análise: Kholat". ComboCaster. 2018-05-31. Retrieved 2020-07-14.