Blair Witch : Joining the Search Party [Mission 1] {Walkthrough/Gameplay}
Channel: theRedLad
Date: 2019-12-14

Blair Witch
Mission 1 : Joining the Search Party
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IGN Review : Every once in a while, one of those horror games comes along that gets mythologized as a harrowing experience best left alone by anyone without a taste for relentless, oppressive fear. Blair Witch definitely deserves a spot in that pantheon alongside Amnesia, Silent Hill, and their like. The many ways it manages to build tension and make me wonder if I’m losing my mind with a fairly simple premise of being lost in some woods creates a wonderfully unsettling journey. And it even manages to break with the tradition of recent horror games by giving you limited ability to confront the nightmares without ever turning into a power fantasy.
This trip to the edges of sanity placed me, in first-person perspective, back in the Black Hills Forest of the classic 1999 film The Blair Witch Project. It’s rendered here in an eerie, muted color palette that adds to a sense of foreboding and helplessness with its spindly, grasping trees and rich but subtle sound design. During the day, I always got the impression that I was being watched, or that I wasn’t supposed to be there. At night, everything transforms into an oppressive, heart-pounding, sometimes disorienting nightmare that made me long for the limited relief the sun’s rays could bring.

And, true to the spirit of the franchise, the environments aren’t afraid to play disorienting tricks on your mind by having paths loop back to places they shouldn’t or moving key landmarks you thought you could use for navigation, so I was never fully able to get my bearings and map the area out in my head. While all of that is slightly frustrating, I found this to be very appropriate to the kind of mood that was being evoked.
Party Like It’s 1999
I appreciated the level of reverence shown for the original film as well, from little visual nods to a downright hellishly terrifying sequence that takes place in that old house from the finale. Blair Witch also fearlessly expands on the mythology while remaining respectful to some of the key premises, like the witch herself always existing as more of a malevolent presence than a monster that comes out to chase you.

Ellis, the voiced protagonist, has his own complex, layered, and bone-chilling backstory to discover along the way. As someone with firsthand experience of post-traumatic stress and panic attacks, this is probably one of the most accurate artistic depictions I’ve seen of those things. It was almost too real at some points, and I would caution others with similar experiences to be aware of that before jumping in.

The major inclusion that makes it bearable is Bullet, your good boye German shepherd who is ever alert for hidden items, can be used to follow scent trails from objective to objective, and even warns you with a low growl when danger is near. Sure, his AI isn’t perfect, and there were a few times when he either got stuck on the other side of a doorway or had to perform some kind of complicated dance to line himself up and get through a small opening. But he’s a welcome companion traipsing through the dark, oppressive underbrush and gave me a way to bring down my real world heart rate with some nice ear scratches after particularly stressful segments. Not only can you pet the dog in Blair Witch, you should, as how you treat him can also affect the ending.

I’m told there are at least four possible endings, though I was only able to see one across multiple playthroughs of the story, which took me a little over a dozen hours the first time through when I was trying to be through. This one was hauntingly bleak, though quite appropriate to the spirit of the franchise. I was a little frustrated with how unclear it was what I needed to do to unlock the others, though. Even trying to speedrun through a second time and do things a bit differently (you can get to the end in a handful of hours if you know where to go and really haul ass), I ended up with the same result.

If you take your time there are collectible items like photos of the witch’s previous victims and military dog tags scattered across the map, but nothing to indicate how many you have left to collect or when you’re “done” with an area. I’m not even sure if the photos have anything to do with which ending you get, honestly – that’s just my best guess right now. Especially since the levels are so large, disorienting, and sometimes don’t even follow sensible laws of physics, it seems like it would take a very thorough combing of the environment to get a different ending. And I’m not sure I’d have the patience or the stomach to do so without a guide.