Hollowbody Review

Welcome to my review of Hollowbody. This game was not on my radar and was new to me when I saw it pop up in our emails recently.

The game is brought to us by Headware Games (Chasing Static) and it originally launched on PC back in 2024. It was recently launched on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles in June 2026.

Hollowbody is labelled as a survival horror and psychological horror game so that immediately piqued my interest. For the purpose of this review, we were kindly sent a PlayStation key.

The Game

The premise of the game sees us playing as Mica, a black market shipper who has lost her partner Sasha and she will stop at nothing to find her.

It has been 12 days since Sasha left, twelve long and sleepless nights until Tax finally gets a call. A border security guy is looking to make some extra cash on the quiet and can sneak Mica into the zone to find Sasha. She has two hours to find Sasha and then Mica has to get the hell out of that place!

I wasn’t keen when I first fired up Hollowbody. It starts off with you following a guy whilst wearing a hazmat suit (as in the above screenshot) and seemed really slow paced… However, once that first scene was done, the game picked up and I really enjoyed my playthrough.

The graphics, gameplay, and puzzles were very reminiscent of classics such as the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games from the early days of PlayStation. That is not a negative comment. It’s very refreshing to see throwbacks to games from my younger years, particularly the aforementioned franchises.

There were a few times I was completely lost and found myself wandering around the game. However, I think this was just me being a plonker and not the game itself because when I realised what I had to do it was so obvious. Maybe I should read more in-game documentation… Who knows?!

Hack, bludgeon, and shoot!

The combat and the creatures in the game were not too difficult to work out patterns and the such. There is a nice selection of melee weapons and firearms provided. Such weapons were the usuals like a pistol, a shotgun, and melee weapons such as a makeshift axe and a spiked board just to name a few.

The level design is pretty interesting, it has starts off looking like a futuristic dystopia and after you crash your (what I can only describe as) flying car, the game moves to an older and British setting. Old buildings crumbling down, shops that have for the most part fallen to pieces, and debris lining every street of this town that people once called home.

The graphics are what interested me the most as it has an early PS2 / late PS1 aesthetic and the developers are clearly not trying to make the best looking game out there. More of a nostalgic look than modern. I like it.

Hollowbody isn’t by any means a long game, but it also doesn’t promise to be. I cleared it in ~10 hours. But at the time of writing the game costs only £12.99. There are also two different endings for you to unlock along with 27 trophies including the platinum.

That’s what, two or three pints down the pub? I have no idea as I don’t drink alcohol or even go to a pub… So I would be interested to know prices… Let me know in the comments! 😂

Key Features:

Classic survival horror gameplay inspired by early 2000s horror titles.
Cinematic blend of dynamic and fixed camera angles.
Logic puzzles, resource management and limited combat with a focus on narrative and exploration.
Full voice acting.
An emphasis on strong world building set in a dystopian near-future.
Carefully paced save points ensure tension is maintained whilst respecting the player’s time.
Difficulty options to aid players who prefer exploration over combat.
Post-game unlocks and features.

Conclusions

If you’re a fan of survival horror games from yesterday, then I reckon you will probably enjoy Hollowbody. It has a real retro feel to it, which is not a bad thing when it comes to games like this. I thoroughly enjoyed my play through even though I got lost a few times and was wandering around aimlessly. However, that’s more than likely my fault and not the game!

I give Hollowbody an 8/10.

Now that you’ve finished reading this review, the trailer is below, you can also check out our previous reviews. If you’d like to purchase this game on PS5, head on over to the PlayStation Store page.