Even if you’ve never played one for yourself, you’ve likely seen the “anomaly” genre of horror games on some form of social media or streaming. You know, the ones where you walk through the same hallway/metro tunnel/house (insert all that apply) looking for signs of demanifestation or shifting reality? Yeah, those ones. Exit 8 is a prime example of how when a niche type of game clicks, it can really build up a cult following.

The Cabin Factory is the latest effort to break into the genre, and while it has a somewhat lukewarm premise, it’s just too short and boring to be anything more than “meh”.

Factory of Woe

In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that The Cabin Factory is a £2.49 video game. As such, this review is more going to be a reflection on how I felt my time was spent (roughly 1-2 hours), as opposed to the actual price of entry, given it costs less than a Freddo (probably, I can’t look at the price of Freddos without weeping now).

Visually, The Cabin Factory hits the right notes from the off. A sterile corporate interior dishing out endless of varieties of the same small cabin, filled with a modicum of detail and shifting environmental cues. Graphically, it’s not bad at all, and it runs as smoothly as the Thames, overflow of rubbish notwithstanding. In short, it looks the part of a horror game, and the cabin itself has some solid tropes of the anomaly genre, such as the creepy character models and good use of lighting.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all there is to see. Aside from the credit sequence being set in a different room, you’ll be staring intently at the same walls, doors and characters from minute one to minute 90, and the repetition kicks in far too quickly.

Cabin Fevers

The reason that repetition and tedium become such a focal point so quickly is partly due to the game’s inherent design. You’re a cabin inspector after all, and your job is to simply walk into each cabin off the conveyor belt, and determine if it is haunted, or not. Get 8 right in a row, and you win. There are roughly 20 or so anomaly cabins, and a handful of non-anomaly variants, which are randomly spun up through RNG.

Maybe that face in the mirror will be following you, or perhaps you’ll find a diorama showing where the ghostly apparitions are you have to avoid. Sometimes they’ll even appear and chase you. The cabin is small and you’ll learn within the first 30 minutes what to look out for, eventually even being able to spot some ‘safe’ or ‘danger’ cabins before walking in.

I’m sure there’ll be some skill-based competitions of doing 8 in a row within the time it takes to boil a kettle, but honestly, I just got so bored, so very quickly. The first half of my time with the game was frustration at not finding seemingly impossible-to-spot anomalies, the second half was mindlessly replaying in ‘random mode’ to mop up the trophies.

Build-A-Mare

Part of the issue is that The Cabin Factory can be finished in less than 10 minutes if you get 8 right immediately, or like me, it becomes an excruciating exercise in mindless nothingness if you get one wrong. Making a mistake resets your progress (as does getting caught if hunted by a ghost), and the variations of anomalies, coupled with the ridiculously small real estate, makes things go staler than that slice of bread that fell behind the counter 4 years ago.

To its credit, The Cabin Factory does have a hint of a story lurking around. It’s ridiculously basic and straightforward, but at least there is one. A couple of the anomalies are a little more engaging too, even if the scares or tension are basically non-existent. Do yourself a favour and turn on the jump scare feature in the settings too. You can thank me later for that one.

So, while The Cabin Factory is rather disappointing and bland, this needs be counter-weighted against its price-point and the fact it does try to do something with its very limited runtime. My 90 or so minutes weren’t completely wasted, but when my favourite part of the game is that I earned 7 gold and 3 silver trophies, as opposed to it being the game itself, it’s hard to really give it a glowing recommendation.

The Cabin Factory is available now on PlayStation 5 (review platform), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Developer: International Cat Studios
Publisher: Future Friends Games

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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