Scarlet Hollow is one of the best horror games ever made

What are you doing right now? Spending time with family? Browsing gaming news at work? It doesn’t matter — stop it immediately and go play Scarlet Hollow. This horror visual novel has been a long time in the making; the game was released in several chapters, and now that the fifth chapter is out, I’ve finally found the time to play through the full game. And then I played through it again. And then I started a third playthrough. There’s something quite special here, and I still don’t feel like I’ve uncovered all of the mysteries in this weird little town.

Scarlet Hollow is from the developers of Slay the Princess, a game that plays with the narrative conventions of visual novels, the dynamic of heroes and maidens, and questions of destiny and the divine. Scarlet Hollow starts off with a much more mundane premise. You’re heading into the sleepy town of Scarlet Hollow to visit your estranged cousin, Tabitha, and attend your aunt’s funeral. Tabitha runs the family business, a mine that employs most of the town, and she is, to be diplomatic, an off-putting weirdo. Luckily, it’s easy to make friends with a few of the town’s eccentric residents, and one of the first choices I made was the option to go on a Scooby Doo-style adventure in the woods.

It doesn’t take long for Scarlet Hollow to take the gloves off, and go from awkward family drama and cryptid hunting with a cute girl in the woods to deeply unsettling scenes of mutilation and murder. There’s something wrong with this town, and something about your arrival appears to have caused it to stir, manifesting aggressively around your new friends.