Every game genre has infinite variety and horror is certainly no exception. From the recently released AAA Silent Hill f to the odd and obscure such as Penumbra and Yomawari: Lost in the Dark, there are plenty of unique titles out there to enjoy. Indie horror is one of the best types because there are few constraints. Just look at Corpse Party or Heaven Dust II if you don’t believe us!
Today we’re looking at another indie horror game that is unique and unexpected. Total Chaos from Trigger Happy Interactive and publisher Apogee Entertainment is more than just your standard horror game though. Instead it’s something of a modern throwback, a game based entirely on an old Doom II mod of the same title. Released in 2018, the mod is nothing like the original Doom II, opting for a mostly psychological horror approach rather than the traditional boomer shooter swarms one associates with the Doom franchise. Trigger Happy has reconstructed the Doom II mod in painstaking detail and upgraded it with the Unreal 5 engine to create an almost entirely rebuilt game.
In Total Chaos, you are shipwrecked, washed ashore on the abandoned Fort Oasis. It appears to be an old prison and your only connection is an old two way radio, allowing you to hear from someone who is somewhere on the island. There’s a deeper story of love, depression, loss, anxiety and self-harm going on here and those of you that are sensitive to such subjects should definitely avoid Total Chaos. The plot plays out slowly, chapter by chapter as you wind your way through a bizarre network of tunnels, passages, doorways and more that start to blur the lines between reality and schizophrenia. We’re not going to spoil any of the reveals here but as the game unwinds, you slowly find yourself drawn into the strange happenings on the island and the fates of those that were there. Besides the radio, the story is mostly provided through old cassettes and letters left about. The old audio log approach that was used so heavily in System Shock 2 (review here) is in full effect in Total Chaos, and that’s not a bad thing because you can continue playing while the log runs rather than waiting for each segment to end.
The vast majority of Total Chaos consists of exploration, crafting, and combat. The island is a warren of interconnected weirdness full of filthy chambers, abandoned rooms, and locked or barred exits. Veteran Doom players will quickly feel at home because the level design aesthetic is incredibly similar to that classic series, even if the visuals are not. While there are no overt Doom references that we saw, the way various areas are structured is clearly indicative of the game’s origins and Total Chaos ends up being complex but easy to memorize as you wind through the depths of the island.
As you explore, you’ll come across a variety of weird items, some of which make no sense at first. Rotten food is everywhere and you’ll need it, along with glue, tape, wooden shafts, and a whole host of other items. At semi-regular intervals you’ll find crafting tables where you can combine all of the items you find to make essential things like weapons, bandages, and even potions. Crafting is essential in Total Chaos because you rarely find intact weapons that last long as the game features one of the banes of video gaming – weapon degradation. Right from the first pickaxe you pick up, you’ll notice a bar in the lower right hand corner showing how long before that item breaks. Your first few weapons are almost spent and don’t last long, especially if you like to break everything. Making more is the only way you’ll survive but to do so, you’ll have to fight enemies or run from them until you gather what you need.
There’s just as much running away in Total Chaos as there is outright combat. The glorious art of running away has always been a staple in horror movies, horror games, and even old Monty Python movies so that shouldn’t be much of a surprise but there’s a surprising amount of it in Total Chaos, even after you start to acquire some more powerful weapons like the sledgehammer, the harpoon, and the shotgun. In some areas, you’re literally unarmed as enemies come tromping steadily toward you Michael Myers style. In others, you’ll have to keep a constant line of sight on the enemy or they’ll sneak up on you and kill you in a blink. Some whole rooms full of enemies require no combat as long as you’re paying attention to the clues around you. It’s all a matter of how you approach the gameplay and in Total Chaos, going in guns blazing will definitely get you killed.
The enemy variety slowly expands the further you play into the game and each new monster is a bit more powerful than the last. Different tactics are more effective on each one but as long as you have enough gear, you’ll be able to pummel most things, even if their initial attacks are a bit aggressive. While enemies do pop out at you from various areas of concealment, it’s nothing like the sudden mob spawns that Doom games drop on you. Instead you’ll abruptly be confronted and chased by a handful of fairly powerful enemies that you can herd to choke points and take out more carefully. Saving is only performed at the record players strewn about the game’s various levels, so kill and save doesn’t work unless you’re patient and want to wander through a ton of empty hallways and passages.
What you’ll rapidly find however is that the vast majority of Total Chaos is surprisingly empty. Aside from the few monster encounters, nothing else really pops out at you and nothing you kill respawns, leaving you wandering empty hallways to make sure you didn’t miss anything and generally longing for more combat and storyline. Wandering from grey corridor to grey corridor over and over and scrounging for food and parts quickly becomes a bit tedious, even though the visuals are insanely detailed and well-done. If you’re not vibing with the drip-feed of the story and the long empty passages however, Total Chaos is a bit of a hard sell, and that’s before you realize that all in all, this isn’t really even a horror game in the first place.
As much as the game sells itself as horror, in reality when you start to break down the structure of the gameplay, Total Chaos becomes a linear puzzle game. You need to complete certain actions in a certain order and solve approaches to each appearance of monsters in order to proceed. While the levels are complex, the actual pathways you can go to move the story forward are incredibly linear. The game attempts to create the illusion of choice, but most pathways are dead ends, frequently providing only a handful of mildly useful items. Instead, progress is only gained by moving forward and there is typically only one way to do that, whether it’s following the paths that are open once you’ve mapped the dead end branches in your head or backtracking to a noticeably locked door that requires a key. Even many of the monster combats are actually puzzles in disguise, forcing you to use your resources or approach combat in a very particular way to efficiently defeat or avoid some enemies.
Once you clue into to the puzzle structure of Total Chaos, a lot of the fear disappears. There’s no real benefit to staying alive, so dying until you solve the puzzle isn’t particularly scary after a while, especially once you know which enemies are going to jump out from where and how they’ll react. Environmental bottlenecks are extremely effective as well, keeping multiple enemies from swarming you as you beat them down one by one with lead pipes and homemade shivs. Individual enemies are fairly weak until you get several levels in, so this minimizes your damage and allows you to take your time clearing each area. Things start to amp up midway through the game, throwing a wrench into a regimented approach to gameplay and adding new complications and additional environmental effects that you’ll have to compensate for but the basic structure of the game stays the same even if you have to memorize more maps. That should be easy for old Doom players but a bit more challenging for modern players as this style of level design went out of fashion quite a while ago for the most part.
Total Chaos manages to make up some of its shortfalls with some excellent visual and audio design. While the game uses a lot of dark browns, greys, and blacks that bleed together, the rotten, moldering corpse of Fort Oasis is incredibly realistic. If you’ve ever been in old abandoned facilities, this is exactly what many look like. The monsters are inventive and creepy as well, with each new reveal adding an unexpected scare or attack. The limited number of monsters means that they don’t stay scary forever, but the design work is outstanding and the creativity in Total Chaos is quite impressive. The game looks beautiful in 1080p and runs smooth as silk with no slowdown and only a handful of collision detection glitches that are mostly in weird corners.
The audio is the real star here. The oppressive, subtle music adds to the atmosphere of the game, making the abandoned halls of the fort feel hopeless. Monsters noises are fantastic and the quite, constant sounds make you feel like you’re slowly going mad. Added to the excellent voice work that sounds both desperate and slightly mad, the soundscape of Total Chaos weaves a background for the visuals that make them feel alive and lived in…or undead as the case may be. When the madness starts taking hold of you, things get particularly intense in the sound department and it honestly might make some players uncomfortable.
While it has some shortfalls in pacing, level design, and population, Total Chaos is a unique horror game that’s as much puzzler as it is terrifying. While it’s not going to appeal to everyone, there’s a decent story here underneath all the disturbing environments and the audio is absolutely fantastic. This is a fantastic mod that’s turned into an excellent stand-alone horror experience, even if it won’t resonate with all players. Total Chaos is rather unique though and it’s modern update definitely makes it scarier than the original mod and worth checking out!
This review is based on a digital copy of Total Chaos provided by the publisher. It was played on a PC using a 3080 GFX card. Total Chaos is also available for PS5 and Xbox.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.