The untimely click of well-worn high heels echoes off the dimly lit, drab and dreary walls of the unspecified, yet painfully generic hospital corridor. You sprint past rows of doors, some open, others shut, and other still cracked open with the flicker of eerie redlight spilling forth- just about the only color saturating the otherwise lackluster halls.
How did you get here?
Where are you going?
How did you know this is where you should be?
More importantly, how did you make it this far with your 3 inch heels still pristine and intact, yet your dress is absolutely saturated in blood, clinging on to dear life?
The questions endlessly roll through your mind, so distracting you don’t even notice yourself merely phasing through what should have otherwise been a solid metal chain-link fence. You barely noticed. The group of soldiers hot on your heels, noticed, however. No longer able to advance, they open fire, jerky and mechanical. Barely more than a blob of out of place neon suited Storm-Troopers, you skirt away, tripping over nothing in-particular in the process. The confusion you feel fringes on overwhelming.
What on Earth is going on here?

Unfortunately, the irony of this is painful when it comes to the state of the game.

Sofie: The Echoes is the first title both developed and published by Working Game Studio. It is a self-proclaimed story-driven, third-person action-adventure title boasting horror and compelling narrative elements as you play the part of Sofie, a determined wife and mother. Through combat, exploration, and puzzles in a “dark world”, you will be tasked with unraveling secrets to ultimately save your family. However, despite this enthralling narrative, the only thing I found unraveling was my patience and sanity, ultimately leaving me to wonder: What on Earth WAS going on here?

More than one thing seems amiss, here.

From the get go, things were difficult for Sofie. On the heels of a somewhat delayed launch, I was eager to sink my teeth into something new and fresh. What I found, however, was anything but. Character dialogue reads at the cadence of an awkward baby giraffe, lending me to potentially believe there is some use of AI as far as voice work is concerned. Immediately this makes what should be a highly compelling story very hard to latch on to. Odd pacing and awkward sentence structure will leave most players scratching their heads, so distracted my the sheer fragmentation and lack of care the story will fall on deaf ears.

Despite some of the higher quality assets, some things are harder to overlook.

Unfortunately, on a graphical standpoint, many of the same issues echo. Lacking in any great detail, levels feels very angular and static. Parlor lighting tricks and the occasional overturned asset really do little to cover the fact that the game is really quite threadbare. Items look stark with occasional blood-splatter for flare- while you might notices mismatches or odd sizing that is just scaled incorrectly enough that it makes you tilt your head at the feeling of Uncanny Valley you are constantly caught in. Enemies all look very similar, and while there is some variance, you can’t overlook each of the troops being carbon copies, nor the mass majority of “zombies” being the exact same model. What they lack in brawn, the certainly do not make up for in brains- constantly getting lost, hung up, or suffering from nothing short of a full-scale break down entirely, making no attempt to move or attack.

This is not what most players have in mind when taking cover.

Controls feel floaty, and work at a very primitive level. While I appreciate there is even an option to take cover, it doesn't serve any real practical purpose. As delicate as your health is, you entirely lack the ability to lean out from said “cover” to open fire. Instead, you woefully glitch about a foot in the air, shimmying along the wall. Death will be swift, I promise. Even should you forego taking cover, gun play is sloppy at best, feeling weightless with no real kick. While some enemies drop magically with one poorly placed head-shot (the hitboxes are... “generous” to say the least), other will never succumb to their wounds, and endless bullet sponge for you to empty your entire store of ammunition on.

Despite the surrounding carnage, an occasional enemy will most likely forget what it was he was so upset about.

Ultimately, in it’s present state, Sofie: The Echoes is bordering unplayable. Coated in a thick layer of spaghetti-code crawling with bugs, there’s just not enough substance here to drive players past the initial frustrations that are so glaringly obvious. Lacking core functionality, no guidance or tutorial, ghastly voice acting and an unbelievably disjointed and ill-paced story, it is obvious this title needed more time in the oven. While the trailer shows promise of a wildly thrilling journey of a determined mother and spouse, it becomes rapidly apparent that it comes in Dead on Arrival. Hopefully the developers will be able to make some much needed adjustments, leaving it’s present state as nothing more than an Echo of the Past.

Sofie: The Echoes is available on the Steam Marketplace for $49.99 USD.