I Hate This Place review: The property listing left out the screaming

The big picture

I Hate This Place is an admirably efficient title. Before anyone explains the situation at Rutherford Ranch, it has already supplied the likely response. The place contains haunted woods, a derelict town and infested bunkers, which is quite a lot of red flags for one address. An estate agent might describe the monsters as “an active local community.”

Rock Square Thunder’s isometric survival-horror game launched digitally on January 29, 2026, for Windows PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch. It builds its identity around scavenging, crafting and using sound carefully, with a comic-book presentation drawn from Kyle Starks and Artyom Topilin’s series. The result is a clear proposition for anyone who likes survival horror to involve practical decisions as well as deeply impractical living conditions.

Daylight is a limited-time offer

The day-night cycle is central to the pressure. Daytime is the opportunity to explore, gather and prepare. At night, more enemies appear, their aggression increases and navigating with a flashlight becomes more difficult. The ranch apparently operates a surge-pricing model, except the currency is your ability to remain alive.

This creates an understandable planning rhythm. A useful trip can still be a poor decision if its timing leaves you exposed. Shelter matters because sometimes the sensible response to a deteriorating situation is to stop pretending you’re the exception and wait for morning. Survival games benefit from making retreat a valid choice; otherwise every encounter eventually becomes an argument about ammunition.

The tradeoff is that this kind of structure appeals most to players who enjoy preparation itself. Gathering materials and improving a refuge are part of the experience, not a brief service interval before the “real” horror resumes. If you want an uninterrupted, tightly directed thriller, the need to manage your own excursions may feel like the apocalypse has assigned household chores. If you like ownership over your survival, those chores give the danger something to threaten.

Please keep your impending doom quiet

Sound gives encounters another useful wrinkle. Many creatures hunt by listening, so making noise can expose you, but it can also redirect attention. Luring enemies away or into traps turns their behavior into something you can exploit. Suddenly the environment offers more interesting options than standing your ground and hoping the local nightmare has a small health bar.

That relationship is the strongest part of the combat pitch. Stealth and fighting belong together because the way an encounter begins can matter as much as what you do once it becomes unavoidable. Creating an advantage fits the vulnerable-survivor premise better than assuming every problem should be solved through fair combat. Fairness is an odd thing to demand from a creature stalking you around a bunker anyway.

It also makes restraint meaningful. A horror game can say the player is in danger while rewarding constant aggression, which rather undermines the speech. Here, the emphasis on distractions and traps gives caution a practical purpose. Being clever enough to avoid a confrontation is its own form of competence. The monster may consider it unsporting. The monster is welcome to file a complaint somewhere far away.

A comic panel with terrible neighbors

The bold comic-book look and 1980s horror flavor distinguish I Hate This Place from games that communicate seriousness primarily through increasingly expensive shades of gray. Color, camp and gore can coexist with threat. In fact, an exaggerated visual identity can make a horrible location more memorable than another abandoned building that looks as though nobody has found the light switch since 2008.

The comic connection also suits the mixture of dark humor and disturbing situations. The game’s own title establishes a weary, conversational attitude toward the supernatural. It invites you to recognize how absurd the circumstances are without requiring the danger to disappear. There’s room to laugh at a dreadful situation while still wanting a locked door between you and it.

That tone won’t be everybody’s preferred flavor of horror. Anyone looking for restrained, almost documentary realism should adjust expectations. The appeal is stylized nastiness with a practical survival structure underneath it. Think less “solemn examination of an abandoned property” and more “someone illustrated the worst weekend imaginable, then made you responsible for gathering the supplies.”

The verdict

I Hate This Place has an appealingly connected set of ideas: explore to prepare, prepare to survive the night, and use noise intelligently when the neighborhood gets curious. Crafting gives the horror a practical framework, while the comic style supplies personality. It’s a natural fit for players who enjoy managing risk as much as confronting monsters. Rutherford Ranch sounds like a dreadful place to live, which, in this particular line of entertainment, counts as a promising introduction.