Publisher: The Brotherhood
Developer: The Brotherhood
Year: 2023
Platform: Windows, Switch, PS5, Xbox One, XBox Series

Rating: 8

After not particularly enjoying the highly awarded Stasis or its follow-up Cayne, I was skeptical when Bone Totem was released to universal praise and accolades. My doubts faded quickly and never returned as The Brotherhood demonstrated they could learn from their mistakes and produce was one of the greatest sequels in adventure game history.

Taking place in the same universe, Bone Totem leaves outer space for the deep blue sea. Mac and Charlie O’Bannon form a salvage team that runs across a derelict oil platform in the middle of the ocean. They (especially Charlie) immediately see dollar signs, After the loss of their daughter to a horrifying accident, they consider this the opportunity they’ve been waiting for to rebuild their lives. Yet they soon realize that they’ve actually bumped into the top of an elevator that connects to a research lab far below.

If Mac had his way, they would have left after discovering a horrifyingly posed dead body on board. But the ambitious Charlie convinces him to press further, this possibly being their last chance to get out of their crippling debt. Begrudgingly, Mac takes along Moses, their late daughter’s battery operated teddy bear (whom he blames for his daughter’s death) that has been programmed with complex hacking techniques and admonishes Mac whenever he curses. If you’ve played the previous two games, you’ll have a sense for the horrors that await them in the research lab below.

You will play as all three members of the family, each with their own skills. At first you’ll be together, but after taking the elevator to the bottom of the ocean, you’ll be accidentally split up for the greater part of your mission. Each of you has audiovisual implants that make it easy for the characters to communicate with each other but also to see what the others are seeing. There’s also a “quantum storage device” that allows you to easily trade items with each other (similar to the time machine in Day of the Tentacle). While laughably implausible, it’s thankfully easy to suspend disbelief to enjoy the creative and ever present inventory puzzles.

Each of the three family members has their own special skill. Mac has the ability to crush items or separate their individual parts. Charlie the engineer has the ability to take seemingly unrelated objects and MacGyver them together. These actions are simply done by putting items in special slots and clicking the adjacent button to see if it works. Meanwhile, Moses is the super hacker that can fit in tiny spaces and is (mostly) immune to environmental hazards. More than once you’ll have Mac destroy some piece of technology, have Charlie engineer a new device, then give it to Moses who needs it in his neck of the woods.

Unlike the previous games in the series, nearly all of the puzzles make some kind of intuitive sense, and oftentimes wrong guesses are at least rewarded with an explanation. Pixel-hunting issues have also been eliminated, as each character has the ability to “ping” the nearby area which will highlight everything you can look at or manipulate. Additionally, inventory items are only used during close-up shots, so you’ll always know where the puzzles are even if you don’t know how to solve them yet.

But the most significant upgrade from the previous games is the voice acting. The Bischoff Brothers have clearly grown as directors and did an amazing job casting real actors who were all making their video game debuts. Brian Grey, Michelle Campbell, and Danny Doyle are all phenomenal in their roles, and it genuinely felt like they were in a room talking to one another. Horror games are often dragged down by the actors not knowing how to actually behave like a scared person, and every reaction here feels fraught and believable. Nobody is having a 14 hour panic attack. You will eventually meet a few other characters as well who are also excellently portrayed.

The visuals, which were the clear highlight of the first two games, have also improved. While the perspective remains isometric, the view is more intimate. Rather than viewing a large area from high above, you are much closer to the action, with the screen scrolling as needed. Before I felt like I was looking at gorgeous paintings in a gallery; in Bone Totem it felt like I was there. While some areas are almost too dark to fully enjoy, the hotspot highlighter at least keeps it from being frustrating. The music and sound effects are also of high quality, with ambient noise leading the way and little in the way of jump scares.

Death is possible, but in almost all cases it occurs when you’re ignoring a clear warning or doing something stupid. And each scene is a treat, with a cinematic, gory shot punctuated with a splash of blood dripping down a title screen. You’re restored to the moment right before your mistake, so there’s no risk in experimenting.

The plot, which primarily (and once again) focuses on the twisted, horrifying scientific experiments of the Cayne Corportation, is slowly doled out as you access each new area. PDAs are lying about, as usual. While still contrived, at least they no longer feel like they were left there specifically for an adventure gamer to find, but read like genuine journals. They do indeed have the occasional hint but they are more organically integrated into the story. You can switch between the three characters at any time, who all have their own puzzles they’re individually working on in addition to the obstacles requiring teamwork. This helps reduce some of the natural linearity of the story. In one case, I solved a whole set of puzzles in an order I don’t think the designers intended, which left one of the story beats a little less dramatic; otherwise, it was the perfect amount of freedom to keep from getting bored or stuck for too long.

My only significant criticism of the game comes from its bloated length, with the final third of the game taking a sudden sharp turn plot-wise, focusing less on the nightmares of the Cayne Corporation and the personal lives of our heroes, and more on generic, apocalyptic horror that goes well beyond science and into a supernatural territory that interests me little. I also found the ending to be too explicitly foreshadowed and ultimately unsatisfying. My investment in the fates of Mac, Charlie, and Moses slowly dissipated as the game whimpered to its ultimate end.

I think I’ve had my fill of the Cayne Corporation world and hope the developers branch out into new territory. The disappointing conclusion aside, Bone Totem is easily slots into the top tier of adventures I’ve played and I eagerly await the next project from The Brotherhood.