Butcher’s Creek is certainly not a bad game. David Szymanski doesn’t make bad games. What he does make, however, are games that explore the road not taken in game design. Dusk1 shows how sprite-based FPS’s (“boomer shooters”) would’ve evolved, if they hadn’t been replaced by 3D-rendered counterparts. Gloomwood2 demonstrates how 2000s immersive sims might’ve continued if they hadn’t nearly vanished for a decade. Even Iron Lung3 — the least derivative of his games — pushes the fixed-position gameplay of both 90s point-and-clicks like Myst4 and early 2010s horror like Five Nights at Freddy’s5 to a logical extreme. I say all this because it is important to know, going in to Butcher’s Creek, that its developer is someone who has dedicated his craft to derivation, and has shown an ability to do so masterfully.
Butcher’s Creek, one of the latest offerings from Szymanski, takes a similarly iterative approach to his previous titles — this time developing over top of mid-aughts grindhouse titles like Condemned: Criminal Origins6 and Manhunt7 It also borrows from grindhouse-adjacent slasher cinema for its aesthetic, with movie franchises like Texas Chainsaw Massacre8 and SAW9 being obvious inspirations. And so, you’d think, it should be set up for success: if David Szymanski is a master of derivation, then Butcher’s Creek — with its myriad underappreciated inspirations — could be a masterwork.
Butcher’s Creek, however, does not manage to accomplish this. Not even close. And it’s failure stems from a simple reality: this is the first game that David Szymanski has made where it feels like he has nothing to add to the aesthetic, narrative, or gameplay genres he is operating on. Or perhaps that he is afraid to, given the subject matter — which is much darker and more realistically depraved than anything he has made previously.
The reasons for this critique are threefold:
The combat is remiscent of Condemned, but is too easy, and made downright trivial by certain design decisions.
When all three fundamental pillars — narrative, gameplay, and aesthetic — fall short, how could I not be disappointed? Sure, it is grappling with a dark subject and deep themes, but it is so scared to engage with their implications that I’m left wanting. Sure, it is fun to play, but it isn’t more fun to play than the 20 year old game that inspired it. Sure, it has a gritty, low-fi grindhouse aesthetic that is cool to look at, but… Well, I could pick up any indie horror title on Itch.io and have a decent chance to say the same (or better).
And that is a shame, because all of the elements that Szymanski is toying with in Butcher’s Creek have the potential to be captivating, in wholly unique (and uniquelly-Szymanski) ways. Based on Dusk and Squirrel Stapler10, I am sure that he could’ve delivered a horrifying, gripping, depraved plotline that keeps you gripped only because you don’t want to turn away.
I am sure that he could’ve developed gameplay systems that took what worked in Condemned and expanded on it, making a game with more meat (perhaps raw and squirming), rather than just the old bones of what worked before.
I am sure that he could’ve packed a bit more nasty into some of those scenes, really make them crawl up the players’ skin.
I mean, this is a game where the player character explicitly loves the carnage he is creating, and loves stumbling onto scenes of carnage. This is a game where the only difference between your character and the violent, snuff-producing psychopaths that he is killing is that your character is better at it, and loves it more (a truth made clear throughout and confirmed at the ending). And we aren’t grappling with that? Talk about a missed opportunity… or perhaps a timid backstep.
In the ideal version of this game, I’d have to give you a content warning before showing this.
Because — whether due to time, budget, or an understandable hesitation toward the content — Szymanski ultimately pulled back. Thus leaving Butcher’s Creek as an unsettling, visceral experience, yes, but one less akin to charging shovel-first into an active torture den to paint the walls with more blood, and more akin to digging up the grave of its victim.
That is not to say the game is entirely without artistic merit. Indeed, just making a game with this scope and these themes nowadays is interesting, and seeing any return to that near-perfect Condemned formula is exciting, and may inspire others to pick up the torch. Plus, the eldritch horror elements within the game — from liminal spaces and not-quite-logical geography to a strange wendigo-like creature that appears only once — do work and are artistically interesting, even if there are too few of them to save the game’s creative ambitions.
More of this, please.
In fact, the eldritch/demonic-horror ending is so fantastic and recontextualizing that it almost does make up for some of those flaws. Especially in how it ties into several of Szymanski’s other works, notably Dusk, Pony Factory11, and Squirrel Stapler. In fact, the ending is so great that any critique of the game would be incomplete without examining it.
At the end of the game, after murdering your way through the vast compound of cultist/snuff-filmmakers and making your way to the lair of the “Watcher” (an entity alluded to in many letters, but never seen), you enter and are confronted by it. A gross amalgamation of limbs and heads barrels at you, surely stronger than whatever weapon you might wield. And, as it hits you, the screen flashes, alternating red-text-on-black and black-text-on-red, displaying “THE CRIMSON COMMUNION” over and over and over again (if you are sensitive to flashing lights, this sequence is not for you).
The end sequence in total showcases what Butcher’s Bay could’ve been.
And then, the next thing you know? You are within the creature, this “Watcher,” and the Watcher is taken aback by the player character’s love for it. It builds upon themes mentioned (but not thoroughly explored); namely, that the player character is a messed-up and very deadly adherent to the gospel of pain and depravity that the Watcher preaches. And, through this unexpected union of witness and doer, it seems that the apocalypse is brought on, as the Watcher — now free and empowered — is released.
And… Well, that’s how you do an ending. It makes the game feel like it had more thematic richness than it did, implies a setting that is far more imaginative and otherworldly than we actually see, and presents a truly challenging aesthetic that actual gets a player thinking and captivated, desperate for more.
If the entire game had chosen to displace more of its underbaked grindhouse visuals and themes in favor of gore-infused occult ones like that ending, it probably would’ve been a total improvement. Already, the ending adds enough fascinating depth to make me think twice about my criticisms, until I remember that it is only the last five minutes of game that reaches those peaks.
As is, however, those elements are few and far between, and so only serve to give players something to chew on in retrospect or within the larger context of the “Dusk-verse.” The vast majority of Butcher’s Creek’s gameplay, narrative, and aesthetic, meanwhile, are simply uninspired, failing to meaningfully build on its myriad inspirations. While enjoyable as a nostalgic throwback, Butcher’s Creek ultimately plays it too safe. And when dealing with snuff films, cults, and raw, bloody carnage, ‘safe’ just isn’t enough. Make me uncomfortable, dammit!
Butcher’s Creek is available on Steam here.
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