Once again Nextfest is back to bring gamers a bunch of demos to play and games to wishlist. I have already downloaded all of the games that I want to play and I refuse to go back for seconds because I will get lost in the infinite pages of demos. This week is a homage to Resident Evil games of years past. This week I relearn why I do not like older Resident Evil games and for very clearly, justified reasons. This week is Echoes of the Living.

Echoes of the Living is a survival horror game from Moonglint. The game is set to release in Q1 of 2024.

In Echoes of the Living, you can take the role of one of two characters: The absurdly built male character and the short but sexy female character. Each character has their own playthrough: Liam is looking for his journalist friend and Laurel is looking for her father. Typical survival horror things.

Doing all the Resident Evil things while trying to avoid the zombie scourge that has broken out inside of the city that is not named Racoon City. You are running from zombies all the while checking every door in search of answers to puzzles, resources to loot, lore to learn, and keys to unlock doors. LOTS OF DOORS NEEDS KEYS IN THE DEMO.

The puzzles were complicated but never really moved into total and utter frustration. Exploring usually reveals more answers to puzzles and you will be exploring a lot.

Tank controls are ass. There is never a situation where I would want tank controls in my video game. If you are not figuring out the controls and forgetting them mid-fight, then you are missing shots with the only firearm you have. Melee weapons are introduced early on and seem way better than any gun. Aim well and at the last second, you can make a zombie’s head explode into pieces that hit the ceiling.

The game looks really good. The demo really gives a good look at what is to come went eh full game releases. The zombies look gross and make awful gurgling noises.

Echoes of the Living is a solid demo. I had fun playing it until I saw that I had been playing a demo for over an hour. It did get to a point where there were so many puzzles and keys that I needed to keep track of that I was beginning to get frustrated going back and forth ad nauseam. I ended up leaving the demo around that mark because I was totally convinced that if I had kept going I could have beaten the game. It showed no signs of ending.

In the end, tank controls are terrible but the Echoes of the Living demo was incredibly fun for the time that I played.