s.p.l.i.t. Review: A Visceral, Brain-Melting Dose of Horror That Ends Too Soon

Some games give you a gun and tell you to shoot the monster. s.p.l.i.t. gives you a command line, a blinking cursor, and a palpable sense of impending doom that’s more terrifying than any creature. This is a game that gets its hooks in you deep and fast, a retrofuturist nightmare that perfectly captures the paranoid fantasy of being a hacker in some grimy, rain-slicked dystopia. It’s a potent, brain-melting experience that hurts in the best possible way. And then, just as you’re fully mainlining its particular brand of dread, it ends.

Welcome to the Machine

The first thing that hits you about s.p.l.i.t. is the atmosphere. It’s a thick, suffocating blanket of lo-fi CRT monitors, industrial hums, and a killer original soundtrack that makes every moment feel uneasy. The developer, Mike Klubnika, is a master of this kind of aesthetic, but here it feels more refined than ever. The entire game plays out through a diegetic UI, making you feel like you are genuinely sitting at a terminal deep within some unethical superstructure, poised to do something very, very stupid.

The Art of the Command Line

The core gameplay is raw terminal hacking, and it is glorious. There are no minigames here, just you, a command prompt, and your ability to navigate directories and execute commands. If you’ve ever touched a CLI in your life, it’ll feel instantly familiar. If you haven’t, prepare to be frustrated, confused, and then immensely satisfied. I spent a good chunk of my time banging my head against the wall, trying to figure out the right syntax to pull files from a device, my in-game crewmates’ IRC messages providing only the slightest hints. But when it finally clicks, and the code scrolls down the screen successfully, you feel like a goddamn genius.

Drowning in Dread

The game masterfully builds tension without a single jump scare. The dread is constant and comes from the weight of your task, the cryptic conversations with your crew, and the unsettling nature of the facility you’re infiltrating. You never see the horrors, but you can feel them through the implied worldbuilding and the sharp, effective writing. It’s a masterclass in creating a sense of place and terror using little more than text and sound.

A Story in Fragments

The narrative of s.p.l.i.t. is delivered in pieces, through chat logs and files hidden in directories. It trusts you to put the puzzle together yourself, revealing a story about corporate malfeasance, forbidden technology, and the psychological toll of the work you’re doing.

Whispers in the IRC

Your only connection to the outside world is an IRC chat with your fellow technicians. These conversations are the narrative backbone, giving you intel, building camaraderie, and slowly revealing the stakes. The characters feel distinct despite their brief appearance, and their gallows humor and quiet desperation make the situation feel grounded and all the more tense.

The Unseen Horror

This is a psychological horror game through and through. The game touches on some incredibly dark themes, including visceral self-harm, and the two endings are a swift, brutal punch to the gut. It leaves you feeling disturbed and a little sick, but in that special way that only truly effective horror can. It’s the kind of ending that sticks with you long after the credits roll, forcing you to contemplate what you just witnessed.

The Ghost in the Code

For all its brilliance, the game isn't without its flaws. While the experience is high-quality, it’s also plagued by a few issues that keep it from absolute perfection, the most glaring of which is its own brevity.

An Agonizing Tease

Let’s get this out of the way: this game is painfully short. You can see both endings in under an hour, even less if you’re quick with the keyboard. And that’s the real tragedy. The gameplay, the world, the atmosphere, it's all so compelling that the abrupt ending feels like a wasted opportunity. It’s like being served a single, perfect bite of the best steak you’ve ever had, only to have the plate snatched away. For a few bucks, it’s a hell of a bite, but it leaves you starving for the full meal.

Technical Gremlins

The immaculate immersion was also shattered a couple of times by technical issues. I experienced some significant FPS drops during an ending cinematic, and at one point the entire game crashed to desktop. These were minor blemishes on an otherwise polished experience, but they were noticeable enough to pull me out of the moment.

The Verdict

s.p.l.i.t. is a testament to the power of minimalist design. It creates a more compelling and terrifying world in one hour than most AAA horror games do in twenty. The authentic hacking gameplay is satisfyingly cerebral, and the atmosphere is second to none. It’s an incredible, visceral experience that’s held back only by its own fleeting nature. It feels like a brilliant proof of concept, a pilot episode for a series I desperately want to watch. Despite wishing there was so much more of it, what’s here is absolutely worth your time and money.

Score: 8.8/10