Creepshow game review – Tales from the crapt

This may feel like a strange way to start a game review, but bear with me…

Pulp horror comics have a special place in my heart. When I was starting to read on my own, my father would bring home piles of comics from a second-hand bookstore, and among the Richie Rich, Casper and Superman, there were rogue issues of titles like Tales from the Crypt, and The Twilight Zone. I probably shouldn’t have been reading them, but I did, and it entrenched a lifelong love of this twisted comic subgenre – where bad things happen to good people, but typically worse things happen to the wicked.

Which means I loaded up new PC game Creepshow with enthusiasm. Coming from indie horror publisher DreadXP, developer PHL Games, and AMC Global Media, this point-and-click narrative adventure embraces its horror comic roots. Officially the game is a licensed adaptation of Shudder’s hit streaming anthology series, itself inspired by the 1982 horror comedy that used the old infamous EC Comics as its creative basis.

Creepshow, the game, mirrors the format of the TV show. With intermittent commentary from the ghoulish, omniscient Creep, the plot sees teenager Danny and a band of his classmates investigate a mall gutted by deadly fire. Separated from his friends, Danny encounters The Reader, an enigmatic fortune-telling entity that insists it will help Danny escape the bowels of the shopping centre if he provides stories to nourish it. This overarching plot couches two shorter interactive tales, which Danny finds as comic books among the destruction. The first is about a grieving husband overwhelmed by his wife’s terminal illness, and the second is centred on a disgraced priest exiled to a decayed country church.

While the animations leave a lot to be desired, especially in the second segment, Creepshow embraces it comic roots. Intro and outro frames are modelled on hand-drawn comic pages, there are speech bubbles and titling throughout, and the game features a suitably grubby cel-shaded aesthetic as seen in the likes of The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands.

Unfortunately, despite its visual flair, and strong setup, Creepshow squanders its potential. The result is a half-baked, unsatisfying mess that can be ticked off in two to four hours, depending on your skill with the game’s smattering of puzzles, and commitment to finding the lone three collectibles that allow you to change the game’s look – between classic black and white movie, retro VHS cassette, and old-school pixelated video games. Side note: Only the Classic Movie isn’t distractingly ugly and an impediment to gameplay.

What’s extra frustrating – and which dials up the bad feeling – is that Creepshow starts well. The first story segment, titled Metamorphic Love, is deeply unsettling, capturing one man’s mental breakdown in the midst of squalid surroundings and mundane, meaningless routine that means nothing as he loses the love of his life. It’s a twisted treat; exactly what you would expect of the Creepshow series.

The same can’t be said for Part 2, The Toll Keeper, which feels pointless, and is made even more painful by cumbersome controls and camera angles applied to too-vast environments. Your character is a horrible human being to begin with (which is fine for this genre), but as he follows the instructions of a sinister disembodied voice, and increasingly shows his true unchristian colours, there’s no suspicion on his part; no evolution; no comeuppance. The story just ends, taking players back to Danny’s framing tale. This in turn also simply concludes, tangled in a nonsensical, migraine-inducing message about fate and cycles.

Maybe the plan is to keep a door open for a game sequel, but given people already expect standalone experiences due to the anthology nature of the source material, it’s a weak ending that feels rushed.

And as Creepshow is a very on-rails game, with no branching choices to reshape events, it would be hard to get players to return to this, and future instalments. Disappointing at best, and dreadful – and not in the way fans want – at worst.

Creepshow is out for PC now, via Steam, having released on 13 August 2026.