There’s something uniquely unsettling about survival horror that leans more on atmosphere than action, and EBOLA VILLAGE fully embraces that classic feeling of old-school dread. Throwing players into a ’90s-inspired nightmare, this title focuses on slow–burning tension, careful exploration, and the constant feeling that any corner you turn, you will be greeted with a nightmare.

Developed and published by indie_games_studio, EBOLA VILLAGE challenges you to solve puzzles, manage limited resources, and survive brutal encounters while piecing together a story that rewards those who pay close attention. 

EBOLA VILLAGE is a first-person survival horror experience focused on exploration, combat, puzzles, and environmental interaction. Players move through a gloomy, tightly designed USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) village, and you need to search for key items with some light environmental puzzles thrown in and a soft storyline, and I mean soft might as well not be there. The game was quite enjoyable.

The combat features a variety of weapons and leans heavily into the realistic enemy physics. Enemies vary enough to keep all the encounters feeling interesting, and some unique boss fights thrown in there help break up the pace of the game.

The game has three difficulty levels, allowing you to tailor the experience or even challenge yourself a little more. There are no skill trees or progression systems, but you can craft healing medicines from plants, which just means you need to use the plant, so there was not too much thinking needed, and you can find better weapons to take out the hordes of enemies along your journey. 

The controls are fairly straightforward and easy to pick up, following a traditional first-person survival-horror layout. The movement and interactions feel responsive overall, though the aiming can be a little janky at times, especially during tense combat encounters. That being said, after spending some time with the game, it’s something you can adjust to fairly quickly. Combat isn’t overly fluid, but the slight clumsiness works in the game’s favour, adding stress and uncertainty rather than making you feel overpowered. Overall, the control scheme suits the game’s horror theme quite well without making things overly complicated.

The game leans into a gritty, realistic art style with the environments feeling claustrophobic and decaying, filled with rundown buildings, tight corridors, and disgusting-looking interiors, which makes the environment feel unsettling and both abandoned but also disturbingly lived in. One of the standout visual touches for me is the enemy damage system, so as you shoot them, their bodies visibly break down, stripping away layers and leaving exposed bone and disturbing remnants behind.

It’s brutal, uncomfortable, and incredibly effective at keeping the game’s tone. I would have liked to see a bit more polish in the game’s visuals. Some things didn’t quite feel polished enough with the textures and weird little things, like when you go into a house, it just randomly becomes nighttime with all the windows, but if you go back outside, it’s daylight.

EBOLA VILLAGE uses sound as a core tool for tension, leaning heavily into atmosphere rather than constant music. There’s no traditional backing soundtrack driving the experience; instead, the game relies on unsettling environmental audio, such as creaking floorboards, distant knocks, and scratching windows. All the dialogue is spoken in Russian, which at times results in subtitles that feel awkward or make very little sense, but this oddly adds a strength, almost accidental sense of humour to the game. Despite that, the audio design remains highly atmospheric and works hand in hand with the gritty, claustrophobic visuals, keeping you on edge and reinforcing the feeling that there is always something around the corner.

EBOLA VILLAGE delivers a tense, old-school survival horror experience that prioritises atmosphere over action, and for the most part, it succeeds. While the story is light and the game could benefit from some additional visual polish, its unsettling environments, brutal combat and audio design do a great job of keeping the tension high whilst playing. It’s not a perfect experience by any means, but for fans of slow-burning horror and gritty, uncomfortable settings, EBOLA VILLAGE offers a memorable and genuinely unsettling journey. 

Written by: Hayden Nelson