Like so many third-party ports for the Nintendo Switch 2, it’s impossible to recommend Total Chaos without mentioning some caveats – unless, of course, portability is essential or you have no other console under the TV. That said, while Total Chaos has noticeable framerate dips and degraded visuals in the performance mode, it offers a rough but compelling psychological horror experience that is rare on Nintendo hardware. It’s also easier to appreciate if you consider it started life as an ambitious DOOM II conversion using GZDoom, before transitioning to the now ubiquitous Unreal Engine as a standlone game.
Through nine lengthy chapters, the slow-burn opening sees Total Chaos evolve from a run-and-hide puzzler into a more traditional Silent Hill-inspired psychological horror – albeit entirely in first-person.
The tense and appropriately chaotic opening chapter might leave you confused about the genre, but you’ll quickly settle into a rhythm of inventory management, scavenging and crafting supplies, juggling melee weapons with limited durability, and rationing the use of firearms with severely limited ammunition. If nothing else, Total Chaos nails edge-of-your-seat combat design. It’s a game in which you only ever have enough resources to scrape through the next encounter before desperately scavenging for more.
It can be a brutal game so there are difficulty settings and a “Tourist” mode that starts you off with gear. However, if you’re a fan of the genre, I would suggest sticking to the original experience in which you’re only ever just ahead of the difficulty curve. There are puzzles and switch hunts under pressure, stalker sequences, and a few run-like-hell set-pieces, but most of the game is about managing consumables and picking the right sharpened tools for the job.
Basic enemies fall with a well-timed dodge or shove, followed by a flurry of attacks, but more complex encounters are gradually introduced. Skulking spider-like creatures blind you with web spit before rushing in; lumbering split-headed creatures grab you if you don’t first choke them with a thrown item; teleporting electrified creatures are set aflame with a well-aimed bottle of alcohol; and a screeching enemy forces you to look away to minimise damage mid-attack. Stalker encounters and boss fights might force you to stay mobile, sprint between crawl spaces, keep your eyes on a creature to avoid one-hit-kills, or use environmental hazards to damage them.
There are also survival elements like stamina, health, bleeding, hunger, and madness to manage, so crafting is not just about taping blades or nails to sticks. You need to find healing sources (some of which might be less than sanitary), scrounge food to manage hunger and boost stamina, combine alcohol and rags for bandages, and there are even mysterious coloured compounds you can blend, Resident Evil-style, in your old syringes. Even with a generous weight limit, you eventually need to make choices about what to take with you and what drop near a save point to collect later.
As an indie title and former mod, I am not going to pretend the gameplay mechanics are the most polished, but they are engaging and involved. What I didn’t expect was that the unravelling narrative would be the biggest hook; that and a morbid curiosity about just how much more challenging it could get.
The nameless protagonist – possibly a member of the coastguard – arrives at the derelict Port Oasis after surviving a bizarre storm. Entering the looming port structure through a sewer drain, a scrawled note on the wall indicates there is no turning back – your last chance to backtrack to the boat and leave. Push forward and you’ve committed to a lengthy gauntlet through increasingly twisted environments and the creatures that haunt them.
To Total Chaos’ credit, it plays its cards openly and it’s clear from the start on that whatever the protagonist is experiencing must have something to do with their past on the island.
Games can ruin the experience by revealing too much too soon, but Total Chaos drip-feeds its narrative beats and scattered documents with just the right pacing so that I was always left wanting to know more. What was the nature of the community at Port Oasis? Who does the voice on the radio represent and should you follow their advice? What happened during his last relationship that it left him literally haunted by manifestations of the trauma?
Like all good psychological horror games, there’s a link between the narrative themes, the environments, and some of the creatures you encounter. Much of the basic gameplay loop involves monster ambushes and key hunts, but those moments are interspersed with set-pieces and boss-like encounters that clearly represent elements of trauma through the distorted visuals, creepy audio, tortured dialogue, and sparse but excellent music.
Even numerous underground sequences that ran on too long for my tastes proved effective at generating an incredibly oppressive atmosphere (often due to a lack of light sources) which triggered moments of relief when I finally emerged back above ground into the dim grey light and increasingly stormy weather.
Of course, as with the gameplay mechanics, the indie nature of Total Chaos means you can’t go in expecting cinematic production values, just really effective use of the resources it had. My one critique is that some actions needed to get the alternate ending are obvious while others are so random you might want to use a guide if you only play through games once.
On the whole, Total Chaos is an impressive conversion of a well-regarded mod into a standalone indie game – something I’d love to see more off given the long and often impressive history of total conversions mods. On Nintendo Switch 2, I’d recommend it to survival- and psychological horror fans but just be cognisant of its limitations and the compromised performance mode going in.
Total Chaos was played on Nintendo Switch 2 using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox Series S|X, and PS5/Pro.
Double AA Gaming 