"Sharp co-op dread undone by guess-the-path chases and soft-locks"
About
Scratch Creek is an episode in the Fears to Fathom series, an anthology of first-person psychological horror built around ordinary people recounting a night that went wrong. This entry is co-op only: two players take the roles of Tessa and Marcus, who share their story after spotting eerie parallels to the show. Minute to minute you drive to locations with GPS guidance, move furniture and place objects, exchange texts and dialogue with your partner, and split up to cover ground. The back half hinges on stealth and chase sequences where the pair hide, run, and try to survive. A single playthrough runs two to three hours.
Verdict
Scratch Creek nails the part of the series it has always been good at: two people, a dark road, a mood that tightens until you're whispering into your mic. The problem is everything built to pay that off. The chase sequences reward memorisation over instinct, the ending arrives half-formed, and the bugs are frequent enough that finishing without a restart feels like luck. At the price it's a fair evening for a pair who forgive rough edges, but the gap between the atmosphere and the execution is hard to ignore.
You'll like it if …
- +You want a short horror night with one friend and treat the jank as part of the ride
- +You value strong voice work and mood over tight mechanics
- +You enjoy comparing both characters' perspectives on a second run
You'll dislike it if …
- −Dying ten times to guess the one scripted escape route drives you up the wall
- −You expect a released game to run without restarts and vanishing companions
- −Long drives and unskippable chatter bore you
Breakdown
- +Splitting up and coordinating over voice adds real tension that single-player horror can't reach
- +The texting system between Tessa and Marcus gives the co-op a hook beyond just standing near each other
- −Chase sequences have one correct path and force you to die repeatedly to learn it, so the fear turns into memorisation
- −The final chase is so dark that players report wandering lost for half an hour, made worse by soft-locks
- −Furniture-moving and the long GPS drives sap momentum between the tense moments
- +Playing the second character's perspective gives a reason for one replay
- −Two to three hours and a strictly linear route leave little to return to
- −No Friend's Pass means both players buy in, which stings at this length
- +Voice acting is a standout, with distinct performances even for minor characters
- +Tension builds convincingly through the opening and middle before the chase kicks in
- −The story telegraphs itself early; players call the twist obvious
- −Stretches of unskippable mundane dialogue slow the pace to a crawl
- −The ending feels rushed and undercuts the atmosphere it spent an hour earning
- +The volumetric lighting and photoreal environments are the best the series has looked
- +Steam Deck runs it once you map the back paddles
- −Invisible walls litter the levels and betray you mid-chase
- −Clipping, crashes, and overheating on some systems break the immersion the visuals build
- −Sound and music cues land unevenly
- +Menus and onboarding rarely draw complaints
- −Soft-locks and vanishing items force full chapter restarts because there are no checkpoints or unstuck button
- −Companion NPCs like Harold fail to follow you to the car, requiring a reset
- −Disconnections and matchmaking hiccups plague the online-only setup
- −The Tessa invisibility glitch and stuck cars point to a release that needed more time
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