You Will NOLF True FEAR: Betrayer Out Now

Once upon a time Monolith made the candy/1970s-colored No One Lives Forever, but then the years passed and the colors drained away. The result? F.E.A.R., which traded NOLF's yuck-yuck-yucks for some spooky, splattery "oh... yucks." Flash forward to today: all of the color is gone, with six Monolith vets producing the gloomily black-and-white Betrayer. It's got scares in spades and thick cobwebs of dread lingering in every corner of its 1604 Roanoke colony setting, but is it any good? Now you can find out. Launch trailer below.

Yes, yes, if you despise monochromatic graphics, you can just fiddle with the game settings until dancing greens and shimmering blues make the world sing like a jolly lumberjack, but where's the fun in that? True fact: black, white, and red are the only scary colors. That's why children so frequently joke about them: to hide the fear.

Betrayer does seem like an interesting prospect, though. Atypical FPS weaponry and an emphasis on open-ish world sneaking had John hearkening back (forward?) to Jim and co's very own Sir, You Are Being Hunted, so color me intrigued.

Also black, white, and red. I have some children to scare off my lawn. OK, I don't actually have a lawn, nor do I know any children. Yeah, fine, jeez, you caught me: I'm the ghost of a long-dead Roanoke colonist and do we really have to get into this right now? In front of the readers?

Look, Betrayer is now out on Steam. That is the news here. My secret identity as an only mildly vengeful ghost has never rarely impeded my ability to bring you hard-hitting PC gaming news, except when my spectral hands slip through the keyboard, which is always.