Inner Chains is an FPS horror game set in a surreal, dark and deadly biomechanical world, played through to the credits with the final boss defeated. The game turns out to be a pleasant surprise against the expectation of a fairly average shooter.
The biomechanical world is striking, with Giger-style design that recalls Scorn and a grim, mysterious atmosphere throughout. The first jump scare is a standout, with the healing-station trap ambushing the moment it is used.
The three-gun loadout has clear identity, with the flamethrower shredding any gun-toting enemies and the shock rifle proving the most useful overall. The shock rifle stuns plants and zombies and has so many puzzle applications that it anchors the encounter design.
The weapon puzzles work, with the shock rifle for stuns and the flamethrower for turret plants signalling the intended tool. The difficulty is fair, and the final boss becomes beatable once the flamethrower is used in long bursts.
The narrative is impenetrable, with the meaning of the story never becoming clear even by the end. The masked enemies are the worst part, since they bumrush and box in the player with nothing to be done once surrounded.
The game is not optimised all too well, with a constant compiling-shaders popup that never stops. The shock rifle’s alternate-fire attachment is never explained and picking it up bugged the weapon switching, while the final boss demands the flamethrower and punishes running out of ammo.
Overall, the biomechanical atmosphere, the weapon identity and the fair difficulty make this an enjoyable bio-horror FPS. The opaque narrative and the boxing-in mask enemies are the caveats.