Paratopic (Arbitrary Metric 2018) is a game I recently revisited, and it is even better than I remembered. I think it acts as a fairly landmark title in retrospect, considering the prevalence of PSX-style horror games. But Paratopic stands head and shoulders over a lot of other horror games that have a much simpler structure. In some ways it reminds me of Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ 2024), in that it relies on filmic techniques and short, sharp moments of gameplay and narrative that never overstay their welcome.

Paratopic situates you in the middle of a disjointed story, told nonlinearly, that takes about fifty minutes or so to beat. One moment you are loading a gun, the next minute there is a hard cut (the kind that is so rarely seen in video games), and you are driving a car down a lonely highway.

It is the game’s visual style that is so entrancing to begin with. I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I should have back in the day (seven years ago, what the hell?)! Rather than being merely derivative of PSX-era titles like Silent Hill (Konami 1999), Paratopic uses texture work and lighting to maximum effect. Camera angles in controlled moments can be odd and confronting – most famously used when you have a close up of the polygonal, warping-textured face of your boss. In these moments Paratopic decenters reality and makes the very nature of what you’re experiencing uncomfortable and uncertain.

Driving the car down a lonely highway is a moment in any other game that should be pretty relaxing. And it is relaxing here too – but due to the sharp cuts, there’s never a moment where you can settle into a soothed mood completely. There’s an air of tension accompanying everything you do in this game, and it works magnificently to make the player distrust what they’re seeing in front of them.

It’s a sensory delight but also a narrative one. Repeated playthroughs are necessary to figure out exactly what’s going on, and even if you figure it out the first time round, there is always more to be found. There’s delight in the way birds alight in the trees, or even in the way the leaves in the trees move, jagged shifting triangles in a nonexistent breeze. You can lose yourself in the ambient music, or wonder what would have happened if you asked about something different in a conversation.

Which takes me to the conversation with the gas station store clerk. I think simply this is one of the best conversations in video games. You are dropped into this tiny, terrible little convenience store attached to a gas station. Outside, in the dark, a figure maybe loiters by your car. You wander around the dimly let, depressing yet oddly comfy store, idly examining (but never taking) the food you find on the shelves. As you approach the desk, the clerk strikes up a conversation from a distance, a conversation interface slowly appearing on the screen as you get closer.

The conversation is odd, to be sure, but also fairly liberating. In a game all about the disjointedness of time and the knowledge you can’t linger for too long, you can enjoy this odd fellow’s company a lot. The dialogue is laugh-out-loud at times, but also just weirdly profound in this very humble way. It’s the kind of conversation you might have had before, idle and yet strangely engrossing, with a person you’ll likely never see again. You hear all about the odd things that happen in a place you’ll never see again – a haunted abandoned carnival, a burned down waffle house – and you’ll wish you could see them. But you never will. You’re whisked away, and the dust doesn’t even have time to settle.

I am struggling to enjoy bombast anymore. I know there’s a time and place for grand, sweeping action, for all hell to break loose. But Paratopic’s sporadic use of violence is much more interesting than a game that relies on violence as its primary gameplay mechanic. Instead, photographing birds and driving and talking have just as much primacy as shooting a gun. It is in this multifaceted delivery that the narrative blooms to become this corrosive, rusty flower, crackling with static and demanding that you pay attention to the screen in front of you. In other words: Paratopic is a touchstone for horror game design and should still be paid attention to today.

You can buy Paratopic on Steam or itch.io.