13 Days of Halloween: Game Review: Bones of Halloween (Xbox Series X)

From Ratalaika Games and Petite Games comes Bones of Halloween, a simple but addictive first-person arena shooter. One with longevity thanks to a multitude of modes and challenges.

There’s not much ‘bones’ to Bones of Halloween when it comes to story. You awaken in a dark forest near a castle and quickly realise that you’re being hunted by grotesque pumpkin skeletons risen from the grave.

Your goal is to hold them back using a litany of weapons until they eventually overrun you and kill you. The more you kill, the higher your score. It’s as uncomplicated as that. The perfect way to kill an hour this Halloween. Especially as Bones of Halloween fits the season so well with its visuals and sounds.

At first, it seems simple enough. Shoot the enemies, pick up the gold they drop and use it to buy weapons and ammo that are lying around. However, after every round of enemies, you will have to choose a ‘fortune card’ and these don’t always benefit you. Their use varies and sometimes it can make the things so much harder.

Then there are other modes that create different challenges for you to overcome. Challenges such as having your money slowly disappear, forcing you to spend as fast as possible. Or challenges like having explosive enemies as your only threat. It’s variety and longevity that the game needs because there’s not a lot else to it.

At most, you’re going to get an hour of gameplay out of it. Setting high scores, unlocking the very easy achievements and trophies, and completing the added challenge mode that really doesn’t ‘challenge’ at all. This short length would be a problem if the game wasn’t so cheap but as far as ‘bang for your buck’ goes, it delivers.

Bones of Halloween was released onto Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4/5 consoles on October 28th 2022 for the price of just $5/€5.