E3 2013 Preview: Lone Survivor for PS Vita

In the PS Vita section of the Sony booth at E3, we got to see a ton of great games. We saw Flower, the breakthrough creation from Thatgamecompany. We saw Tearaway, the newest creation from Media Molecule. Then we saw this game, Lone Survivor, a little known game with only one booth that had few people lining up to give it a try. Anyone who did finally try it walked away pale with a look on their face like they have just seen something horrific, and they had!

Lone Survivor is best described as a 2D psychological horror game. You control someone who may be the last survivor of the human race after some sort of horrible apocalypse. It’s your job to navigate the wastelands of human civilization and find a way to survive your day to day life.

At least, that’s what the game looks like on the surface. It’s not long until it starts playing tricks on your mind. You will walk through a door only to find that there is a party going on, as if the apocalypse never happened. Then, after taking a short bathroom break, you’ll re-enter the party room to see the walls are made of pulsating festering organ meat. That pretty girl you were chatting up is now some sort of horrible monster which you immediately shoot several times. Yet as it cries in death it sounds almost human.

Lone Survivor originally came out on the PC and can still be found on Steam, but the PS Vita version is coming with a few upgrades. First of all, the game will be receiving quite a bit of extra content. Over 20 new items will be added, along with brand new locations, new side-quests, several new pieces of pieces of music, rewritten dialogue for all the characters, and more. There will even be a new combat system and a brand new inventory system controlled via the Vita touch screen.

In addition, the Vita version will be both cross buy and cross play enabled. So purchasing Lone Survivor for the Vita will also give you access to the game on the PS3, and your saves will transfer over allowing you to stop playing on the road and pick up where you left off at home. The PS3 version of the game will also come with the extra content (minus the touch screen features of course).

The Vita version of this game is pretty much everything we could possibly ask for in a console remake. The game runs smoothly and the controls are tight, which is important when you are hiding in the shadows from horrible abominations. The PS Vita speakers do a great job getting across the ambient noise that induces a feeling of paranoia in you, even in a crowded place like E3. Frankly, this game is horrifying, even in handheld form.

Be ready to be scared senseless when Lone Survivor drops for the PS3 and PS Vita later this summer.