Echoes of the Living Review Summary

A fun classic Resident Evil throwback with solid survival horror and good weapon variety, though bugs, glitches, and bad controls hurt the experience.

Classic Resident Evil Throwback: Players overwhelmingly compare the game to classic Resident Evil titles, praising its authentic old-school survival horror feel. Many describe it as a love letter to the series that captures the essence of the PS1 era.

Fun and Enjoyable Game: Reviewers consistently describe the game as fun, enjoyable, and well-made. Many express high satisfaction and praise the overall experience.

Good Weapon Variety: Players appreciate the wide selection of weapons, including both melee and firearms. The arsenal is described as fun, varied, and plentiful.

Solid Survival Horror Experience: The game is widely regarded as an excellent survival horror title that nails the classic genre feel. Many consider it one of the best in the genre.

Enjoyable and Challenging Puzzles: Puzzles are generally well-received, with many finding them interesting, well-designed, and challenging. Solving them provides a satisfying sense of accomplishment.

Bugs and glitches present: Many players report encountering bugs, glitches, and technical issues. Some note that these are typical for an Early Access title, while others consider them significant problems.

Controls are bad: Feedback frequently criticizes the controls as awful, horrible, or problematic across all modes. Some mention that controls feel awkward or clunky initially but may improve with familiarity.

Excessive backtracking: Backtracking is often described as tedious, excessive, and frustrating. It breaks the game's rhythm and feels like padding, especially when it becomes a test of patience.

Clunky combat mechanics: Combat is often clunky, imprecise, and janky. Enemies can corner and stunlock players, and aiming sometimes fails, wasting ammo.

Game needs polishing: Many players feel the game still requires significant work and polishing. It is seen as raw, unfinished, and full of problems.

Classic Resident Evil style: Many reviewers note that the game strongly evokes the classic Resident Evil games, including fixed cameras, tank controls, and old-school survival horror atmosphere. This is the most frequently mentioned aspect, highlighting its faithful retro inspiration.

Classic survival horror gameplay: The game delivers a classic survival horror experience with pre-rendered visuals, fixed camera angles, and 90s-inspired design. This genre classification is widely agreed upon by reviewers.

Survival horror with puzzles: Puzzles are a core element, requiring solving and often featuring typical Resident Evil-style challenges. Players appreciate the puzzle-focused design and the variety of puzzles that can be tackled by different characters.

Melee weapons with durability: Melee weapons are available and often necessary, featuring wear and repair options. They are powerful but fragile, used to clear zombie-infested rooms, and are satisfying to use.

Tank controls and modern option: The game offers both classic tank controls and modern directional movement, allowing players to choose their preferred control scheme. This flexibility is frequently praised.

Game runs well for many: A large portion of players report smooth performance with no crashes, freezes, or errors across long sessions, including on mid-range and older hardware. Some noted the game is well optimized and not demanding.

Frequent freezes and crashes: Players report constant freezes, menu hangs, and random crashes, including loss of progress and being forced to replay large sections. Some crashes occurred during door transitions, menu loads, or after boss fights.

Steam Deck performance varies wildly: Reports range from the game not working at all on Steam Deck to running flawlessly at 40-60 FPS with high or ultra settings. Experiences appear inconsistent and dependent on configuration and Proton versions.

60 FPS cap frustrates players: Multiple players note the game is locked or capped at 60 FPS, with some saying the visuals do not justify the cap. The forced V-Sync at 60 Hz reportedly causes screen tearing on high refresh rate monitors.

Audio bugs and loud effects: Sound issues include excessively loud effects like breaking window panes, blown-out audio regardless of configuration, and enemy sounds persisting outside rooms or after death. Audio sliders reportedly do not work.

Ideal for classic Resident Evil fans: Overwhelmingly positive recommendations target fans of classic Resident Evil and old-school survival horror. Many reviewers call it a must-play for anyone nostalgic for fixed-camera, tank-control PS1/GameCube era horror.

General recommendation for survival horror: Broad positive recommendations target all fans of survival horror, retro horror, and genre enthusiasts. Reviewers widely endorse it for anyone who enjoys classic-style horror.

Cannot recommend current state: Multiple players cannot recommend the game in its current condition due to bugs, softlocks, and missing quality-of-life features. Some explicitly refunded or gave up.

Recommended for genre and 90s horror: Several recommendations specifically mention 1990s survival horror and classic genre elements like puzzles and fixed cameras. Fans of RE, Silent Hill, and Dino Crisis are encouraged to buy.

Worth the price: Several reviewers state the game is absolutely worth its price tag, even in Early Access. They highlight strong value and encourage purchase at full price.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $25.00.

Game completion: 20.0h.

Story completion: 18.0h.

Many players report enjoyment within the first hour or early part of the game, supported by addictive gameplay and positive early impressions. A notable subset still hits forced-tutorial friction or later-game issues that delay or reduce enjoyment.

Friction: Forced tutorial and slow walking sequence; No auto-save after the tutorial, causing replay after death; PC keybinds not shown in the tutorial; Inconsistent aiming and lock-on with unreliable dodge mechanics; Long load times and spawn animations that make enemies temporarily unhittable; Early-game resource imbalance and tedious backtracking.

Unlock drivers: Completing or skipping the forced tutorial; Reaching the second half, where pacing reportedly improves; Using maps to navigate and reduce backtracking confusion; Adjusting to melee spacing.

Old-School Survival Horror Veteran: Methodical exploration, resource and inventory management, puzzle solving, and mastering fixed-camera/tank-control combat. Motivation: Nostalgia for classic fixed-camera survival horror and a desire to support a spiritual successor to the Resident Evil games they grew up with. Stance: buy.

Newcomer to Classic Survival Horror: Trial-and-error learning, lower difficulty, careful resource management, and frequently getting lost or stuck on item usage. Motivation: Curiosity about classic survival horror and a willingness to learn its demanding mechanics. Stance: buy.

Early Access Cautious Waiter: Follows development updates, waits for patches and full release, and avoids the current early-access build. Motivation: To experience a polished, complete survival horror game without technical frustrations or missing features. Stance: no buy.

The provided Windows VRAM cohorts report mostly positive performance, with smooth gameplay and only minor, avoidable issues.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: positive. Players report the game running well, including upgraded graphics, DLSS 5, and a locked 60 fps.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. The included report says the game runs great on this hardware.

Windows 16GB+ VRAM: positive. Reports are positive overall, with great graphics and no significant bugs, aside from an avoidable startup crash if the game loses focus.

Steam Deck: Feedback across Spanish, Portuguese, German, Chinese, Japanese and English reviews shows Echoes of the Living as a functional but friction-heavy Steam Deck title. The most common complaints are the deliberately retro tank controls, imprecise aiming and clunky gamepad handling, followed by a required Proton Experimental compatibility toggle to launch on Steam Deck and Linux, small UI text with a direct request for a Deck text-size option, missing Steam Cloud for PC-to-Deck switching, and unstable PS5/DualSense controller support. More seriously, users report save overwrites that lose resources and an input/progression lock after pausing that persists after reloading. Positive reports confirm the game can hit a solid 57-60fps on Deck and that Bluetooth DualSense works, but the mandatory compatibility-layer work and readability issues keep this out of the seamless tier.

Linux and Proton: Linux and Steam Deck feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Users report the game runs well on Steam Deck and Linux Mint using Proton Experimental, with zero major issues and smooth performance. A single mention of minor FPS drops in the final section on Steam Deck does not indicate Linux-specific friction. No anti-cheat, DRM, or launcher blockers were reported.

External guides: The reviews primarily describe an instructional-data dependency: puzzles require external searches, and the user leans on a strategy guide, videos, or another person's walkthrough to find content such as the SMG. There is no clear evidence of farming routes, drop rates, loot tables, inventory management, crafting requirements, or navigation or bug-fix complaints that would trigger a different tier.

Resident Evil comparisons: The game is frequently compared to classic Resident Evil titles for its survival horror atmosphere and style. It is seen as a spiritual successor or love letter to those games.

Early access release: The game is currently in Early Access with only one campaign available and is not fully complete. The full release and second campaign are planned for the future.

Small two-person team: The game was developed by a very small team of only two people. This has been noted as impressive given the game's quality and scope.

Second campaign planned: A second campaign featuring Laurel is planned for release, likely after the game leaves Early Access. This additional content is highly anticipated by players.

Long overall playtime: Players report that the game is quite long, with playtimes exceeding 20 hours. The length is considered satisfying and worth the price.