Between its narrative, music, and general atmosphere, Lone Survivor wears its Silent Hill 2 inspiration on its sleeve. As you roam the game’s decaying streets and halls, you may come to consider, as I did, that its developer, Jasper Byrne, might understand the iconic horror classic better than anyone, even its own creators.1Before making Lone Survivor, Byrne created Soundless Mountain, a partial Silent Hill 2 demake, for a game jam competition. But to say it is just a copycat or clone would be to do it a major disservice; while it stands on the shoulders of Silent Hill 2, it transcends into having a style and identity all its own.
Released in 2012,2 A director’s cut was released in 2013 and a top-to-bottom remaster named Super Lone Survivor came out in 2022 running on a new engine with new content and features. Lone Survivor stood apart from horror contemporaries like Resident Evil: Revelations, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, and Zombi U due to its grungy pixelated aesthetic and two-dimensional gameplay. Unique even today, Lone Survivor’s existence questions the industry’s common pursuit of evocation through fidelity, instead allowing players to fill in the blanks with their own personal extrapolations. Jasper Byrne then takes this further, sometimes only giving you brief glimpses of uncanny pixelated horrors that are gone before you have a chance to fully process them.
The world of Lone Survivor feels lonely and oppressive, while deft use of dream logic and jump cuts keep you in a state of uncertainty, questioning the nature of what you’re seeing. This is compounded by the fact that the game’s underlying themes feel real and personal, despite its post-apocalyptic setting. A relentless and relatable fear of loss and loneliness pervades throughout the game and is further enhanced by Byrne’s haunting soundtrack, which rivals, and maybe even surpasses, the work of Akira Yamaoka.3Jasper Byrne is also an accomplished musician who has release multiple albums and contributed original music to the Hotline Miami franchise.
The full nature of the disaster that has stricken the world is never explained, nor is it important, but it’s clear some kind of pandemic has nearly ended humanity and the surgical mask the unnamed protagonist wears hits differently in a post COVID-19 world than it did back in 2012. Carnivorous monsters that may have once been human roam your apartment complex and the otherwise abandoned streets. Venturing beyond your block reveals a bombed out war torn landscape. The protagonist wonders what could have happened, causing you to further question his reliability.
Exploring the world of Lone Survivor is initially disorienting, as its two-dimensional side scrolling zones interconnect to represent the depth of a three dimensional space, but learning to interpret your map is essential to finding your way through the game’s dangerous halls and streets. While you’re armed early on with a pistol, there’s a surprisingly heavy emphasis on stealth that involves ducking into the background in a mechanic reminiscent of Blizzard’s Blackthorne,4Blackthorne was released by Blizzard Entertainment in 1994 and allowed players to step into the background of its otherwise two-dimensional plane to avoid enemy gunfire. and monsters that can be manipulated and distracted with clever placements of meat and flares. But in the end, the action mechanics of the game are relatively simple and easily understood. The same can’t be said for the other systems the game intentionally obscures.
Behind the scenes, the game is keeping track of things like your eating and sleep habits, and neglecting self care can have adverse effects on the protagonist’s state of mind. Drugs can be taken, triggering Lynchian dreams that sometimes help contextualize the world and other times further obscure it—all the while ticking unseen boxes leading to endings of varyingly subjective levels of closure.
In the end, Lone Survivor isn’t likely to make you jump or send chills down your spine. It instead brings an uneasiness that can stay with you after you turn it off. It can occupy your mind with questions and interpretations. It subtly asks you to look inward and consider the effects of fear, loss, and guilt in your own life.
Lone Survivor Screenshots
Screenshots captured from Super Lone Survivor on Nintendo Switch.
Lone Survivor
Original Release: 2012
Developer(s): Jasper Byrne, Superflat Games, Curve Studios
Publisher(s): Superflat Games
Platforms(s): Windows, Linux, PlayStation 3, PS Vita, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Nintendo Switch
Super Lone Survivor, the 2022 remaster of the original game, is available on Nintendo Switch and Steam.
Footnotes
- 1Before making Lone Survivor, Byrne created Soundless Mountain, a partial Silent Hill 2 demake, for a game jam competition.
- 2A director’s cut was released in 2013 and a top-to-bottom remaster named Super Lone Survivor came out in 2022 running on a new engine with new content and features.
- 3Jasper Byrne is also an accomplished musician who has release multiple albums and contributed original music to the Hotline Miami franchise.
- 4Blackthorne was released by Blizzard Entertainment in 1994 and allowed players to step into the background of its otherwise two-dimensional plane to avoid enemy gunfire.
