BrokenLore: Unfollow review for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

BrokenLore: Unfollow is the third entry to release in the BrokenLore series, which has… existed for less than a full calendar year. This is an absurd release schedule to put out complete games at, and… to be honest, I’m concerned it might be impacting the overall quality of the games. Don’t get me wrong, BrokenLore: Unfollow is mostly fine, if a little janky and confusing (but try to name three pieces of horror media that aren’t at least one of those). But… it’s rough around the edges. I appreciate what they’ve got going on here, and, I’m not sure how large of a studio Serafini is, but I really hope to see them slow down at some point to focus on refining their games. From this experience, it feels very clear that they’re sort of churning these games out way way too fast (They have EIGHT games listed on steam as coming soon, four of which have playable demos!).

But just focusing on specifically BrokenLore: Unfollow here. BrokenLore: Unfollow has you in the shoes of Anne, a girl who was bullied hard in school and the story follows her mentally trying to overcome the trauma this has caused in increasingly metaphorical and occasionally bewildering ways. Some of the metaphors and symbology are well done and make me nod my head like “Oh, I see where we’re going here, pretty neat”. Other times… well.. let’s just say I had to literally cook my brain in the oven with chilis to season it at one point… like, on a plate. I don’t know, I guess it’s just a spooky horror thing to do, but I didn’t really get how it either made any sense to happen nor if it was supposed to represent something.

The gameplay itself is… apt, for a small studio I suppose. There’s some “Combat” hanging in there to keep you engaged, but it ultimately feels like an unnecessary thing primarily serving to give you a scary obstacle that you need to stop. I put combat in quotes there because it’s very simple and for some reason you fire lightning bolts out of your face when you focus your flashlight. Yeah, I don’t know either there, but let’s just look past that. They needed something that represented what you were doing. Sometimes you’re encourage to sneak, and admittedly even when I got caught, I usually felt like I could just keep walking away and escape anyway. Even better if you turn around and walk backwards to use your flashlight to blind the chaser and make them move slower.

Overall, BrokenLore: Unfollow is a very short game, right around 3 hours in my playthrough, and like I said, ultimately… it’s fine. It does most of what it’s trying to do pretty well, and if you like horror story tropes, you’ll probably think it’s fine. It doesn’t shine as anything excellent, but I think that’s largely on the churn and burn culture of the studio that’s seemingly not letting anything sit in the oven long enough to get beyond “good enough” when it comes to the finer edges. I think if we see Serafini someday slow their roll, from what I’m seeing here, they may very well start to release some heavy hitting stories and games. Unfollow has a clearly good core with interesting writing, but doesn’t have the spine needed to hold it together in a way that feels great. I struggle to recommend it, as the $20 price tag is a bit much for 3 hours of okay gameplay, but if it looks interesting to you, I think you should give it a shot.

Note: Serafini Productions provided us with a BrokenLore: Unfollow code for review purposes.