The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation

I’m not going to lie, when I saw that The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation was a first-person horror game based on a poorly-received Taiwanese movie about a bunch of kids on a school campus, my expectations were low. But what’s this? Much to my surprise, this is a shockingly effective fright fest full of compelling characters and a strong mystery. It’s a cinematic experience with some genuinely great scares and a ghost story that will haunt you for a long time to come. This is my review of The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation.

This is the story of a group of teenage students who are putting together what they hope will be a fun and enjoyable event celebrating one of the university’s most well-known urban legends. It involves the tale of the bridge curse, a tragic story where heartbreak leads to a vengeful ghost haunting the nearby lake and surrounding area. They have authentic face paint, spooky decorations and even a scary maze through the supposedly haunted park. Of course, what these students discover too late is that the stories are all true, revealing a night full of supernatural frights that these teenagers will never forget. Assuming they survive until morning, that is.

Instead of sticking with the same character throughout the whole game, we end up bouncing around between the six people in the friend group. This allows us to get to know each student individually and gives us a window into what everybody thinks of the group. We’re introduced to the typical horror game archetypes – like the skeptic, the prankster, the guy who is superstitious to a fault and so on – only to see a lot of those simple descriptions crumble away as we get to know the people behind those cliches. With all the in-fighting, complicated love triangles and teenage drama, this group had a lot going on even before the ghost shows up.

It won’t take long before things start to go horribly wrong, which is when the story really starts to pick up steam. This splits up the group, sending everybody on their own quests and leading to some interesting pairings between the different friends. Because we’re constantly bouncing from one character to the next, the writers are able to craft a genuinely compelling mystery where they drip feed us important clues, all while using certain characters to misdirect the player. There are a lot of times where we think we know what happened, only to have the game show us the same crucial event from another point of view, completely changing the context.

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The unexpected benefit from jumping between the different students is that it allows the game to show that it can play more than one note. We never know what we’re going to get from one character to the next, as sometimes we’re being chased by a ghost, while other times we’re just walking around the dorms looking for the crying baby. There are moments where we’ll need to help somebody solve a puzzle, something that will be immediately interrupted when one of the teenagers starts hallucinating about an evil clogged toilet. Haunted bathrooms are the worst.

What I especially appreciate is that there’s some real care and craft put into the way the story unfolds. The Bridge Curse is good about balancing out the puzzles, the action and the scares. I love how the game will allow us enough time to catch our breath after supernatural encounters, and some of my favorite moments in the game are the little conversations the characters have about what just happened. But don’t get too comfortable in the quiet moments, because the best frights come when you’re least expecting them.

As somebody who consumes a lot of horror content, I was genuinely surprised by how effective the scares are in this game. Even though there’s nothing particularly new or unique about this ghost, the developer constantly finds ways to scare you. There are a few good jump scares along the way, but the best bits are the ones that force one of the characters to come to grips with their greatest fears. I especially love the way they are able to transform regular classrooms into something straight out of The Conjuring. There’s a real sense of dread running through this entire game.

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Oddly enough, the game’s weakest moments all involve the actual ghost. These bits always play out the same way, with one of the students running away and looking for safety. Once you get away from the ghost, you’ll be able to sneak around the level, trying your hardest to avoid being spotted. But don’t worry, because even if the ghost sees you again, you can usually jump into a port-a-potty or locker to avoid detection. It was while hiding that I had flashbacks to all the worst parts of Metal Gear Solid.

Adding a stealth component to your horror game isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but it’s poorly executed here. A lot of these chases come down to trial and error and memorizing the right path, which means that you’re going to die over and over again. This isn’t so bad early on, but the final encounter will test both your stealth skills and your patience. It’s a fatal combination of being too long, having too many steps and not having enough checkpoints along the way. It’s also not scary. There’s something about being able to memorize the ghost’s pattern that sucks out all of the scariness. Once you realize that it’s nothing more than an A.I. guard walking back and forth, the horror is gone.

Thankfully, the creepy visuals and wonderfully-detailed stage designs help make up for the weaker stealth bits. Although we don’t get to see much of the university, the few places we visit are all genuinely atmospheric. You can tell that somebody went through each classroom and dorm adding fun little touches that go a long way to transport you into this haunted school. My only complaint about the visuals is the weird red glow when you’re walking from one building to the next. I know it’s meant to look eerie and otherworldly, but all it does is make navigating the streets a real pain. Am I going colorblind? Is my TV broken? Nope, it’s just the overpowering red glow filter that was added for no reason.

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One thing I really liked about the presentation is how cinematic the experience was. There are a lot of cinemas throughout the game, and I love how we seamlessly go from gameplay to cut scene right back to gameplay. The character models look good and I like how expressive everybody is. And if you think the cinemas look good when it’s just a bunch of friends standing around talking, wait until the truly frightening moments go down. There are a few scares in this game that are going to stick with me for a long time to come.

Yes, the game flirts with a lot of ghost cliches and some of the English voice acting is questionable, but when The Bridge Curse is good, it’s real good. I like the cinematic approach to both the visuals and the storytelling, allowing us to experience the night from multiple perspectives. This is not only used to further the mystery, but it also heightens the suspense, leading to some truly memorable scares. I can’t vouch for the movie it’s based on, but as a game, The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation is an easy game to recommend.