Portrait of a Torn [REVIEW] – A Tragic Ghost Story 

I’m a sucker for an eerie indie mystery, so having seen Portrait of a Torn was coming to the PlayStation 5, I went in looking for a spooky fix to kill an evening. And honestly? It left me feeling a bit conflicted. It’s one of those titles where you can see exactly what the developers were going for, but it just doesn’t quite manage to stick the landing. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

Portrait of a Torn puts players in the role of Robert, a young soldier who comes back to his family home while on leave. Instead of a warm welcome, the place is totally empty, except for the sound of his mother crying upstairs. He goes up to check it out and well… things kick off from there. I won’t spoil what happens with Robert’s personal arc, but the game actually ends up focusing way more on another character called Hope. 

Hope is a ghostly figure Robert bumps into early on, and upon following her, he finds himself thrown about 40 years into the past to explore an older version of the house. You basically uncover the absolute devastation and loss she went through while trying to reconcile with her horribly cruel mother, and believe me, it’s a bleak and tragic tale. Story-wise, it does manage to stay quite interesting, and whilst I’d say a lot of the twists were fairly predictable, the mystery had enough going on to keep me playing right to the end. 

The weird thing is that there’s hardly any real connection between Robert’s story and Hope’s. It felt a bit odd that he was even involved at all, outside of just happening to be standing in the same building. And that’s fine, but it just felt like a weird way to approach the narrative, especially since it seems to completely take over just as Robert’s tale was getting interesting. There are a few inconsistencies with the storytelling too, especially with the time periods which didn’t always feel very authentic to the era they were meant to be in. Sure, it wasn’t a massive deal breaker, but it was noticeable. 

“If you fancy a short, atmospheric puzzle game for a cheap price and you don’t mind putting up with a plodding walking pace and some janky visuals, you might get a kick out of it.” 

On the gameplay side of things, it plays a lot like a walking simulator, but with a decent chunk of puzzling thrown in. Navigating the house actually gave me massive Resident Evil vibes, because this place is packed with hidden secrets and elaborate puzzle devices just to get through doors. I actually enjoyed the puzzle-solving for the most part, except for this one bit where you have to play a piano and match musical notes – I am completely tone deaf, so that was a little frustrating to get through, but hey, other players will probably be fine. 

What did annoy me more than the puzzles was the movement speed. Robert walks so slowly, and whilst I beat the whole thing in about 80 minutes, I reckon I could have shaved a good chunk off that time if he just got a move on. It’s a frustration, and whilst the environment itself isn’t too big, plodding along like you do can be a pain when you’re just trying to explore. 

Visually, it’s a bit of a mixed bag too, and whilst some of the textures look nicely detailed, you’ll then turn around and see something totally blurry. I spotted the occasional lighting bug and texture glitch too, and there was a weird amount of pop-in during one of the late game scenes. It’s clearly a small-budget indie release so I don’t want to be too harsh on it, because it does its job… it just never looks that good. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

Having said that, it does absolutely nail the atmosphere. The location feels genuinely eerie, and the sound design of the random creaks and noises inside the house really adds to the creepy vibe. The voice acting is a bit all over the place though, and whilst Robert’s delivery is perfectly fine, some of the other cast sounded pretty rough. 

Developer: Indigo Studios 
Publisher: Firenut Games 
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, PC 
Website: https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/concept/10014988/