Hidden: On the trail of the Ancients

I went in knowing almost nothing about this one, and that first half-hour in the boarding house genuinely unsettled me in a way few small indie adventures manage. Lost Spell built something here that feels like a personal love letter to panoramic first-person horror, drawing on H.P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood as clear guiding spirits. You step into the shoes of Thomas Farrell, a young anthropologist who arrives in Buenos Aires in 1934 to piece together what happened to a colleague before joining his uncle's expedition into the forests of Patagonia. The story is pieced together through journals, books, audio records and scattered letters, and the writing in those background documents is genuinely strong, the kind that rewards players who stop and read every scrap of paper. The atmosphere is where Hidden earns its keep. The soundtrack works quietly but persistently, mournful strings giving way to creaking tension as you move between panoramic screens. Strained breathing, occasional freaky visions, and rooms that feel genuinely wrong in their stillness all do more heavy lifting than any jump scare could. The two-act structure moves from a dimly lit boarding house through to an abandoned expedition camp in the forest, and the shift in register between those two environments is handled well. The first half feels almost cozy in its eeriness; the second half presses harder on the dread. Puzzles range from repairing a music box to earn a character's trust, to concocting a potion to ward off evil, to cracking a combination lock. Most of them hold up and feel like they belong in the world. The problem is a handful of pixel-hunting moments where key items are buried in darkness or tucked into corners that require more luck than logic to find. The built-in hint system exists but reviewers across the board found it patchy, and the item-use feedback when you try the wrong combination is too vague to guide you meaningfully. Items also cannot be combined in the inventory; they must be placed in the environment to interact, which is a small but friction-generating quirk. Screen transitions between panoramic nodes are slower than they should be, and there is no option to skip them. Here is the thing you need to know before spending any money: this is the first of two planned installments, and it ends with a genuine cliffhanger right at the moment the story finally starts to feel propulsive. The credits roll and you are left holding a promising opening chapter with no resolution. The sequel, Hidden: The Untold, was announced, but as of writing this sits unconfirmed in terms of release. That context colours the whole experience. If you can accept a game that functions as a slow, atmospheric prologue to a story it does not finish, the craft here is real. If you need closure, you will feel cheated. Completionists will find a set of optional findings and Steam achievements to chase, which add a small layer of replay value to what is otherwise a three-to-five hour run.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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