Hidden Deep Review Summary

Tense horror and addictive gameplay are let down by clunky controls and an abandoned, broken multiplayer that never worked.

Tense horror atmosphere: The atmosphere is highly praised, with tension, horror, sci-fi elements, and music creating an immersive experience similar to Alien franchise.

Game is fun and addictive: The game is frequently praised for being fun, engaging, and addictive. Reviewers describe it as enjoyable, interesting, and cool.

Fun with friends multiplayer: The game is considered much more enjoyable when played with friends, and multiplayer is a welcome feature despite some bugs.

Good concept with potential: The game has a good concept, interesting setting and atmosphere, and is seen as having strong potential.

Nice overall gameplay: Overall gameplay is nice and fun, leading to recommendations and overall enjoyment.

Multiplayer broken and unplayable: The multiplayer and co-op modes are widely criticized as unstable, buggy, unplayable, and lacking promised features like full campaign co-op and four-player support. Many players report crashes, desyncs, and broken functionality.

No updates, game abandoned: Multiple reviews indicate the game has not received meaningful updates or developer communication for over a year, leading players to believe it is abandoned. This is the most frequent and impactful theme across all feedback.

Missing co-op and content: Players express disappointment over the lack of a full co-op campaign, limited multiplayer maps, absence of save functionality in multiplayer, and missing split-screen co-op for all missions.

Clunky and frustrating controls: The control scheme is frequently described as clunky, sluggish, and frustrating to learn, impacting the core gameplay experience.

Not worth the price: Many players feel the game does not deliver value for its price, even when discounted, due to its poor state and lack of content.

2D side-scrolling horror: The game is a 2D side-scrolling survival horror shooter set in dark, claustrophobic environments like abandoned mines and underwater caves.

Horror and sci-fi atmosphere: The game combines science fiction and horror elements with a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere inspired by The Thing, featuring dark caves and underground facilities.

Puzzle-solving elements: Puzzles are a core part of the gameplay, often requiring characters to be apart and involving puzzle exploration in a 2D horror setting.

Monster and creature combat: Players fight monsters, zombies, and creatures with weapons like pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles, including radioactive mutating flies and tapeworm enemies.

Single player and multiplayer: The game offers both single player and multiplayer modes, including co-op up to 4 players, local multiplayer, and a challenge mode.

Frequent general crashes: The game crashes repeatedly during normal play, including in singleplayer and co-op. Crashes occur as often as in an alpha build, and some players report crashes every few hours.

Crashes on startup or restart: The game fails to launch from the start or crashes upon restarting, preventing players from accessing the game at all. This includes execution failures and initialization errors.

ACCESS_VIOLATION crashes: Players encounter EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION errors when minimizing the game, on startup, or during specific actions like placing explosives. These crashes are a recurring technical issue.

Audio and driver issues: Some players encounter audio bugs requiring a reinstall or cannot initialize the audio driver, often linked to OpenAL. Blue screens may occur with other games.

Progression loss due to crashes: Crashes lead to loss of progress, though autosave helps somewhat in singleplayer. In co-op, saved progress may not persist, frustrating players.

Recommend overall: Many reviewers recommend the game, especially when on sale or for fans of the genre. They praise the core gameplay and atmosphere.

Do not buy: Several reviewers strongly advise against purchasing the game, describing it as a scam, not worth the money, or a waste of time.

Buy on sale: Many reviewers recommend waiting for a sale or deep discount before purchasing, as the game is not worth the full price.

Not worth full price: Reviewers feel the game is overpriced for its content, suggesting it is only acceptable at a reduced price or not worth even the discounted cost.

Multiplayer not recommended: A significant number of reviews warn against buying the game for multiplayer, citing bugs, lack of fixes, and missing features like saves.

Community fair range: $2.00 - $5.00.

Game completion: 8.6h.

Story completion: 8.6h.

Session length: 0.5h.

The game offers an enjoyable start with tense exploration and unique tools, but after a few hours, repetition, bugs, and clunky mechanics cause enjoyment to drop for many players. Some never enjoy it due to early frustration like tutorial resets.

Friction: Full tutorial level reset on death; Multiplayer bugs causing desyncs and crashes; Repetitive enemy and map design after few hours; Clunky movement and grappling hook controls; No save progress in multiplayer; Unreasonable map layouts and pixel-perfect grappling hook requirements.

Unlock drivers: Stable online co-op implementation; Additional co-op campaign missions; Bug fixes and checkpoint improvements; More enemy variety and map diversity; Improved AI for idle characters; Full co-op story mode.

Co-op Seeker: Team-based puzzle solving and survival with friend groups. Motivation: Playing cooperatively with friends. Stance: sale.

Solo Immersionist: Methodical single-player with real-time team management. Motivation: Immersive atmosphere and puzzle-solving. Stance: sale.

Frustrated Critic: Cautious consumer who waits for full release or deep discounts. Motivation: Avoiding disappointment and wasted investment. Stance: no buy.

Players with less than 8GB VRAM on Windows report the game runs well, with no performance complaints in the provided snippets.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. All provided reviews are recommended, indicating good performance on this hardware.

Steam Deck: The game has severe stability issues with frequent crashes on Windows, though it runs natively on Linux without Proton. Controller support is incomplete and small text may impact readability on Steam Deck. Overall, the experience is broken due to crashes.

Linux and Proton: Based on the available review, the game works out of the box on Linux (Ubuntu) without any Proton tweaks, suggesting a native Linux build or excellent default compatibility.