Gamers Beware, You’re in For a Scare?
Goosebumps has graced the world with its thrills and chills since its debut in 1992. The franchise has appeared in just about every medium—books, comics, TV, feature films—and is no stranger to video games either. Unfortunately, aside from a computer game from way back when FMVs were still considered cool, none of them have been any good. In 2025, another studio would take a crack at it for the ninth generation. Enter Goosebumps: Terror in Little Creek, a third-person survival horror game. Has this game broken the cycle and finally delivered something of quality? Surprisingly, yes—for the most part.
(Buy Goosebumps: Terror in Little Creek here)
Table of Contents
Monsters in My Backyard?
Source: GameMill
Our protagonist, Sloan, is a bookish, geeky, heart-of-gold girl with her ride-or-die crew: Harvey, Lydia, and Lizzy. There have been a series of strange and scary sightings of unknown creatures running about. The town of Little Creek has enforced a curfew, and Sloan will not stop until she gets to the bottom of this mystery. Narratively, it perfectly fits the Goosebumps mold. Little Creek does a commendable job balancing the horror and lighthearted humor the series is known for. Its supporting cast is fairly forgettable, but the story it tries to tell isn’t really hindered by that.
Silent Hill Light
Source: Gamespew
Unlike previous entries that were mostly point-and-click or mobile games, Little Creek features a fully realized third-person perspective. It plays similarly to an old-school Resident Evil or Silent Hill title. Sloan is armed with a slingshot that can be used to shoot enemies and solve puzzles. Aiming is decent enough, but when monsters close in, it can become quite the chore to actually land a hit. Besides regular monster enemies, the game also features unkillable stalker enemies—similar to Clock Tower or Alien: Isolation—with surprisingly good AI to boot. Also like Resident Evil, Little Creek utilizes an inventory system and allows the player to view their health. In traditional survival horror fashion, you pick up health kits and chocolate bars to rejuvenate your stats. Puzzles in the game are surprisingly well designed; one of the most notable involves solving a lock code by using a specific view of a water fountain as reference. They strike that sweet middle ground—not headache-inducing, but challenging enough for casual players.
The Scariest part, Its Character Models
Source: Push Sqaure
The game’s presentation is a mixed bag. The town Little Creek itself looks solid enough: a quaint, New England–inspired town with all the hallmarks of a classic Halloween special—a creepy cemetery, a church, haunted buildings, and monster-infested streets framed by a crisp autumn night backdrop. The character models, however, leave a lot to be desired. They look pretty meh and are held back even further by the lack of any meaningful animation when they talk. The voice acting is passable for this type of game, but the characters stand almost stock still, their facial expressions blank and emotionless. This makes it harder to build any real suspense or tension when everyone looks completely disinterested in their surroundings. A huge shortcoming of this title is its music—or rather, its lack thereof. The soundtrack isn’t terrible; it’s just unremarkable. Quite a bit of the game isn’t even accompanied by music, just the sound of crickets and your own footsteps.
The Effort Shows
Source: Gamespew
Despite its noticeable shortcomings, this is not a bad game. While it may lack high production values, it has a lot of heart. Given what they had to work with, the developers clearly tried to deliver the best Goosebumps experience they could. But due to limited budget and resources, they couldn’t quite reach their full potential. It’s far from perfect, but you can tell they were trying—and sometimes, trying is good enough. If available at a discount price, it’s worth at least one playthrough for any fan of the franchise.
https://opencritic.com/game/19021/goosebumps-terror-in-little-creek
Verdict:7/10
