Game Review: Don’t Knock Twice (Xbox One)

Based off the urban legend & made alongside the movie starring Katee Sackhoff (read our review of the movie here), Don’t Knock Twice is a horror game that promises lots of scares & interactivity but ends up delivering next to nothing but frustration & boredom.

This review is for the non-VR version.

One knock to wake her from her bed, Twice to raise her from the dead.

Played from the first-person perspective, you take on the role of a guilt ridden mother desperate to save her daughter from an ancient witch. Explore a huge house while solving puzzles, interacting with objects & putting together the pieces of the legend. Your only clues are the occasional text messages from your daughter.

Like all bad horror, Don’t Knock Twice relies on one trope & one trope alone…jump scares. The house is a boorish & bland place to explore. Incredibly dark, the idea of having to light candles to see falls flat when they still offer nearly no light. The only way to fully enjoy this game is to turn your brightness up!

Unfortunately, that just exposes how little there actually is in the house. For all it’s supposed interactivity these amount to nothing more than diary pages, newspaper cuttings & quest items. Hardly inspired stuff.

To make matters worse the game is not very clear on just what you need to do. It’s very easy to get lost & spend ages wandering through the same hallways hoping to find something that can help you progress. This is no fun especially with the frustrating control scheme that seems better suited for the PC.

Ugly to look at & with very little in the way of actual scares the best that Don’t Knock Twice has to offer is decent sound. The subtle music cues add some nice level of tension when working on some of the more sinister puzzles or moving through darker areas.

Seemingly the kind of game that would be far more fun in VR. There really isn’t enough going on here to make it a worthwhile purchase. See the movie instead.