Review: I Hate This Place

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Rock Square Thunder is a relatively new game studio, founded in 2020. They’ve released just one game so far, The Lightbringer, a visually stunning game focused on solving puzzles and navigating platform challenges. The quality of The Lightbringer showed a lot of promise from the developers. Now, in 2026, Rock Square Thunder is partnering with publisher Feardemic to create a survival horror game called I Hate This Place, which emphasizes stealth and using sound to your advantage.

The gameplay trailer for I Hate This Place instantly grabbed my attention. I loved the beautiful art style, the unique overhead perspective, and the fact that it’s a survival horror game – a genre I’m a big fan of. I knew I had to try it, and after finishing the roughly 9-hour story, I have plenty to say about it.

I Hate This Place blends spooky paranormal themes with science fiction, emphasizing sneaking around and making things yourself. While survival horror games are popular right now, few use the overhead, isometric perspective, which is a nice change for this game. Unfortunately, despite an interesting concept, the gameplay doesn’t quite live up to its promise. It’s not a bad game, but it feels like it could have been much more engaging.

Clunkiness, Stealth, and Crafting

From the moment you start playing I Hate This Place, the controls feel awkward and difficult to use. I tested the game on PlayStation 5, and it’s obvious the control scheme was originally designed for PC players. Aiming involves pressing the right analog stick forward to bring up a targeting reticle, then moving the stick to aim and lock onto enemies. This system feels unnatural, and it would have been much smoother if the reticle was always visible and automatically locked onto targets. It’s clear the aiming system is better suited for a mouse and keyboard.

The controls feel clunky and unnatural – aiming and shooting are awkward, and several functions are mapped to the same buttons (like eating, healing, and sprinting all using L2). Adding to the problem, crouching uses both the circle button and the left stick, which is confusing. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t let you change the button layout at all, so you’re stuck with these controls for the whole game. While you eventually get used to them, they’re so different from what most players expect in this type of game, leading to unnecessary frustration.

Once you get the hang of the controls, I Hate This Place becomes really engaging. The core gameplay involves either carefully sneaking past scary monsters to find keys and solve puzzles, or bravely fighting them with very limited ammo. Because ammo is so scarce, stealth is usually the better option – shooting should only be done when you absolutely have to. These monsters are genuinely frightening when you’re close, so sneaking, using distractions, and making a quick escape when spotted creates some truly tense and thrilling moments.

I’m really impressed with how much I Hate This Place focuses on sound. It’s not just about hearing things, but actually seeing what you’re sounding like! Every step you take has a little text pop up – like “thud” when you walk on the floor, or “squelch” when you’re trudging through something gross. It’s a clever way to let you know how much noise you’re making, because if you get too loud, enemies will come running! You’ll either have to fight or find a quick escape, and that little text really helps you decide.

Being close to the large monsters was genuinely frightening, and I occasionally slipped up and made noise. This feature really enhances the stealth sections of the game.

Besides avoiding scary creatures, players will dedicate a lot of time to creating and improving their home base. This involves gathering resources to construct useful buildings like a garden for growing food, a stove for cooking, and a workbench for making weapons and ammunition, among other things.

In I Hate This Place, you can rearrange your base to design the layout you want, which improves how quickly and easily you can craft items. Exploring the world lets you discover blueprints that unlock new crafting recipes for your base, giving you more tools and increasing your chances of survival. I especially enjoyed the process of finding these blueprints.

Players will spend a lot of time building and improving their home base when they aren’t avoiding scary creatures.

That covers the basic gameplay of I Hate This Place. It’s a fairly simple and straightforward experience, and while that isn’t a flaw, don’t expect a complex, immersive survival horror game. It has some exciting moments and nice visuals, but generally feels like it’s just going through the motions rather than offering something truly engaging.

Evil Lurks in the Night

In ‘I Hate This Place,’ you’ll venture out from your home base, The Ranch, to complete quests and gather materials. During these trips, you’ll face enemies, discover interesting locations, meet characters who offer clues, and find notes that reveal more about the game’s story and world. However, the exploration itself isn’t particularly exciting; I didn’t find anything that really sparked my curiosity or made me want to keep searching.

As we’ve discussed, The Ranch is your safe place and central hub. While venturing out can be risky, the game’s day-night cycle lets you decide when it’s best to explore. It’s much safer to travel during the day when you can clearly see your surroundings and any enemies, but some important quests will require nighttime exploration.

Aside from a few missions that specifically need you to be out at night, I didn’t find much reason to leave the base when it’s dark. It’s a missed opportunity – the day and night cycle could have added a lot more to the game if nighttime offered unique rewards, like extra supplies or special upgrades. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works. Venturing out at night just makes things more difficult without offering any worthwhile benefits.

The day and night cycle feels underused. It would be great if nighttime offered unique advantages, like finding rare supplies or unlocking special upgrades, but currently, there’s no real difference between day and night.

Because there’s nothing to do at night, I kept going to bed and skipping time to make it morning. Since sleeping doesn’t really have any downsides – you might get a little hungrier – players can easily use this to their advantage. This makes the day and night cycle feel unnecessary.

Scavenge for Survival

In I Hate This Place, you’ll need to watch out for hunger while exploring. Everything you do – walking, running, even swinging your weapon – uses up energy. To avoid becoming exhausted, keep snacks like chips or vegetables with you to restore your energy. If you let your energy drop too low, you won’t be able to run, and your attacks will be very slow. But don’t worry – a little preparation at your home base will make sure you always have enough food.

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Let’s talk about resources in I Hate This Place. It’s currently much easier to find food than ammo, and I think that balance should be flipped – more ammo, less food. The Hunger Bar is a good idea, but it doesn’t feel very challenging when food is so plentiful. For example, I started at The Ranch with ten soups, and each one completely fills the Hunger Bar, making it more of an annoyance than a real threat.

Aside from managing hunger, you’ll spend most of your time searching for ammunition or the components to make it. It can be really frustrating, especially when you’re starting out, as finding enough materials to craft bullets is surprisingly difficult. While scarcity is common in games like this, ‘I Hate This Place’ feels overly strict when it comes to ammo. Fortunately, healing items, grenades, and food are much easier to find.

I kept running out of ammo, which caused me to die often and spend a lot of time searching for supplies. While exploring for resources is normal in this kind of game, it quickly felt frustrating because I wasn’t really getting anywhere, just running in circles trying to find what I needed. This added several hours to my playtime, making the game seem longer than it is. I’m fairly experienced with survival horror games, so I don’t think it’s a lack of skill on my part.

Closing Comments:

I Hate This Place has some promising ideas – a distinctive setting, a cool overhead perspective, and a focus on crafting. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t quite live up to its potential. Many of its features feel underdeveloped, leading to a generally disappointing experience. The way you gather and use resources is unbalanced, the day/night cycle doesn’t add much, and the controls, especially on consoles, are frustrating. While there are glimpses of brilliance, particularly in the stealth sections and spooky environments which capture the excitement of survival horror, these moments don’t last long. If you’re a survival horror fan with limited options and a tight budget, I Hate This Place might be worth a look, but don’t expect a groundbreaking game.

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2026-01-28 18:11