It’s time to put on your tinfoil hat, pack up the caravan, and clench your backside, because we’re heading to Roswell to hunt some aliens in UFOPHILIA. Developed by k148 Game Studio and published by JanduSoft, UFOPHILIA ditches ghosts for aliens, and the premise sounded interesting enough to dive right in.

You start in your caravan, in front of your laptop. While the game lacks a traditional story, it’s immediately clear that your goal is to search for evidence of extraterrestrials, photographing aliens to capture proof of their existence. You read through a massive guide that explains the game’s basic fundamentals, how investigations work, and how you’ll use the various tools at your disposal through the process.

The process itself is fairly simple. Each investigation begins with scouting the level for signs of alien activity, with different aliens making their presence known in unique ways, from flickering lights to doors opening and closing.

You have access to more than ten different tools, including an EMF reader, Geiger counter, and magnetometer, to name a few, each designed to help identify which alien you’re dealing with and how best to approach the next step. Once “Phase 4” begins, the alien finally reveals itself, and it’s up to you to snap a few photos before you’re abducted.

Unfortunately, before you even reach Phase 4, frustration starts to creep in. You’ll find yourself constantly running back and forth to your caravan, trying to work out which alien you’re dealing with, as many of the signs overlap.

This leads to repeated equipment swaps, especially since you can only carry two tools at a time. Even then, you may still be unsure of what you’re facing, which often results in being abducted during Phase 4 and failing the mission, forcing you to start over once again.

This is especially frustrating as progress is through RP or Roswell Points, which allows you to unlock later levels, but if you get stuck on a level cause you can’t figure out which alien is abducting you. It might turn you away fast.

There is quite a nice selection of missions, offering a variety of locations, so it doesn’t feel repetitive. The different aliens have different temperaments; also, some will not mind you getting a little closer, whereas others are much more aggressive. Regardless, these are aliens, so if you stick by them, taking photos for ages, they’ll get mad and give chase, and they are VERY fast.

For a horror game, only certain moments are genuinely scary, and that’s largely thanks to the excellent sound design. Growls echoing from other rooms, creaking floorboards, or the sound of breathing right beside you are genuinely unsettling and briefly remind you that, yes, you’re playing a horror game. Outside of these moments, however, UFOPHILIA rarely feels spooky. In fact, it strongly resembles Phasmophobia without the multiplayer, and it’s hard not to wonder if it would’ve benefited from it being included.

Graphically, the game is perfectly serviceable. It runs on Unreal Engine, which, as we know, hasn’t been the best-performing engine in recent years, but thankfully UFOPHILIA runs well overall, with only the occasional frame drop. Outside of performance, my only other complaints are some minor typos and an occasionally confusing UI, both of which could hopefully be addressed with updates.

Overall, UFOPHILIA has some fun ideas and genuinely strong sound design, but it feels mislabelled as a horror game. As scary as staring at a screen trying to figure out which alien you’re hunting can be, the aliens themselves simply aren’t scary enough to support that label.

Written by: Dylan Kocins