
"I must eliminate them...ALL..." The bodiless "Hyoki" hunts down the brain-devouring "Slitterheads", lurking in the alleys of a neon-lit city
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Set in the densely cluttered streets of "Kowlong," filled with obscurity and chaos, this battle action-adventure game casts players as the "Hyoki," an entity devoid of memory and physical form. His only motive is to eradicate the monstrous beings known as "Slitterheads" crawling around the city, disguising themselves as humans.
Roaming the vibrant neon-lit cityscape, players must seek out allies among humans known as "Rarities," infiltrate and track dangerous organizations, and engage in battles harnessing the power of blood. As the suspenseful drama unfolds, delve into the mystery behind Hyoki's existence and the appearance of the Slitterheads.
The entity called "Hyoki" finds himself wandering amidst the chaos of Kowlong, plagued by the enigmatic monsters known as "Slitterheads" which mimic humans. Though bereft of all memories, he holds one resolute intention: to eradicate every last Slitterhead. Infiltrating the city, he sets out on a mission to hunt down the Slitterheads masquerading within human society.

Devoid of physical form, Hyoki's ability allows him to possess and control human bodies at will, turning the people wandering the city into his pawns. With this power he can slip through barriers, assume the identity of specific individuals, and infiltrate dangerous areas and organizations. By rapidly switching hosts, he can also traverse the city at high speed.

While human bodies are fragile, Hyoki can burn their life force, turning blood into weapons to confront the ferocious Slitterheads. Even when critically wounded, he can continue fighting by switching hosts efficiently. By possessing "Rarities", specific humans who share high sync with Hyoki, he is able to unleash even more powerful attacks and activate various abilities. The cooperative relationship with these "Rarities" holds the key to uncovering the deepening mysteries in the city of Kowlong.

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Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English*, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Spanish - Latin America, Portuguese - Brazil, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean*languages with full audio support
Engagement
Hours played at review time, across 49 reviews with recorded playtime.
Reviews
Themes across 49 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Reviews
i love the horror gore vibes very unique game play with multi people to play from, i am really glad i found it on sale making it a hit for me would recommend
story driven and original
よき
真螳螂傳
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This game was a real mixed bag with things I admired about it but more things I didn't. The writing and environments are interesting at times, but the gameplay was an unsatisfying and disjointed hodgepodge. The themes didn't end up landing for me in any interesting ways so I can't really recommend it.
I genuinely love everything about Slitterhead. The core mechanics, the storytelling, the world, etc. It's a throwback to the late 90s or early 2000s where the first game in a series was a creative taste of what a series could grow into. Yet... the aftertaste is pure 2020s. Bitter, generic, and disappointing. So, ultimately, I don't know how I feel about this game, so I sure as heck can't recommend yes or no with any confidence. Slitterhead are alien monsters that feed on the brains of human beings. You take on the role of a disembodied spirit, jumping from host to host to kill them. This is the core mechanic, jumping into one body... attack an enemy, leap into a random civilian off to the side and strike from another angle. Combine this with a really cool parry system, a fun open world-style "Pursuit" (AKA movie chase sequence) that fully utilizes the possession system, mechanically unique main characters called "Rarities" that act as your main characters, great monster designs, etc. This nugget of a core is great. But this is 2026 baby... we need to do everything even if we don't have the budget for it! Let's ignore the mediocre stealth scenes and the generic "Follow the ghost/blood trails/gimmick" investigations, the big empty open-level designs and generic challenges and collectables. They function. Even in the core mechanics I love... the main characters are fantastically unique and interesting ranging from healers to gunners to boxers... but every civilian? The exact same. 20 years ago, developers already had more interesting possession game tied to unique skills, equipment, and stats... but there's none of that here. Just random cloned fleshbags to hit things with. Despite beating the game... I don't even know if there was any difference between the different Slitterhead boss enemies. I couldn't tell. Start to finish, it feels like there is 3-4 enemy types, 1 endlessly repeating boss battle. Wanna fight one in the streets? Wanna fight one on a rooftop? What about fighting two that are different colors and may or may not have different attacks or something? How about in a tiny room that feels like the Capra Demon but still acts the same! There's a character leveling system that feels like they planned for something deep and then had to throw a bunch of skill point bundles at you because they ran out of budget to actually use the system. My characters didn't gradually level up, but moon leap upwards in a way that made it feel sloppy and last minute addition. The level design and storytelling is interesting at first glance, but ultimately the game leads into looping stages with minor variations for plot reasons. I feel like there was maybe a dozen relatively small maps? Here's the thing... I don't hate that. I don't hate ANY of that. It worked for plenty of old budget games. It CAN work now. Buuuuuut... as they say in the postgame "I am... still... here? How many times... over and over again..." The problem is that at around 8 hours in I felt like I was approaching an endgame and things felt really good. There was a legitimately great plot twist that leads in a different direction. In a movie, they'd have condensed this to a montage or a series of quick cuts. They'd have respected my time and kept the pacing up as we race towards the epic conclusion. But this is 2026 and we're vidya gamin'! They continually repeat the same plot point in case "a frying pan to the face" is too subtle. I think I had to run the same 3 levels, five times in a row? It takes far too long to REACH this plot twist, far too long to ENACT this twist, and far to long to FINISH it. By the end... I just don't care anymore. With better pacing, all of the above complaints about combat depth or unpolished feelings wouldn't matter. I HAD FUN! I LOVED YOU SLITTERHEAD! YOU WERE THE CHOSEN GAME! Sigh... rant done. You know how I feel and why I've struggled to classify it. It's just a case where I wish the developers streamlined their work to do one or two things well instead of trying to do 37 things mostly-functionally because that's what just games do now.
A good AA action game made by Silent hill veterans. Not perfect, lots of level recycling and a bit bloated and repetitive at the end, But the gameplay is tight, story and art direction are neat, the music is superb and, above everything else, It's fresh ! That's where the game shine like a diamond in the rough and may be a future classic, they didn't try to copy anything, it is unique. A game made with heart and passion, I take Slitterhead over the nth Assassin's creed or CoD 54 anytime.
This is exactly the kind of stuff I love. Weirdly ambitious jank made by passionate people, insane story, cool world, creepy enemies. Absolutely do not recommend going for a Nightmare completion, though.
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Modeled estimate over time, reconstructed from Steam's monthly review histogram.
Audience
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
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