Propnight

Propnight is a 4v1 asymmetrical horror game.[6] There are two roles in the game: Survivor and Killer, and there are 4 survivors and 1 killer in each game. When entering the game room preparation stage, the system will randomly assign roles to players. The way for survivors to get victory is that at least 1 survivor escapes the map. The condition of escape is to repair 5 of 7 machines in the map, the exit will appear when 5 machines are repaired.[7] As for the killer, there are two ways to get victory: first is that the killer kills 4 survivors, or there are no survivors escaping from the exit. The killer needs to knock the survivor down, then place the survivor on the hypnosis chair, if the survivor is not rescued by another survivor, this survivor will die. Each survivor only has two chances to be rescued, the survivor will die instantly if the survivor is placed on the hypnosis chair for the third time. Different characters have different skills. Survivors can increase their own survivability by using skills, based on their characters. Killers can use skill to effectively fight against the survivor with the prop system.[8] In the game, survivors could transform into a nearby prop in order to evade the killer.

Propnight was built by FNTASTIC, using Unreal game engine.[9] After a PC open beta between October 15 and October 18, 2021,[10] it was finally released on Steam in November 30 2021.[2] It has support for 15 languages, including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain), Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Latin America), Polish, Russian, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, and Japanese for the interface and subtitles.

In terms of plot design, Propnight prefers players to experience the plot by themselves. The game only has a general story background. In a small provincial town, teenagers continue to disappear mysteriously. When answering questions about the plot, Anna Vasilieva, the communication director of Fntastic, said that Propnight has its own mystery. Legend has it that we happily think about a lot of the little things we can notice while playing the game. I don't want to deprive players of the fun of building theories and guessing everything themselves.[11]

The art style and graphics are very reminiscent of a mobile game, and the bright colors available are nice and pretty. Normally the dissonance between the color palette and the nature of the game would be cause for concern, however, it just adds to the comedy level of what the devs were clearly aiming to be campy horror fun.[12]

Propnight has received plenty of praise focusing on the game's improvements to asymmetrical matchmaking gameplay. Rhett Roxl from SirusGaming[13] says that while escapees have been given new shape-shifting abilities, the game's balance hasn't changed. Survivors can disguise themselves as regular objects while staying still, or they can be aggressive and stun the killer by constantly jumping on them to help teammates.[14] Aron Poter, a reviewer from NME,[15] pointed out that it takes time to get started with the game, not because the game is difficult to operate or has a poor balance system, but because players need time to get to know the map and the objects they can interact with.[16] They both praised the gaming feature which is survivors can transform into every concrete object that appeared in the scene.

Propnight also contains plenty drawbacks and flaws that are making a bad user's experience. According to Rhett Roxl, the game lacks processing in terms of FPS and motion blur, and that lag and frame drops are more apparent during tense moments.[13] Matthew Lomas from phenixxgaming[17] also pointed out that some of the maps make compromises for the game balance of killers and survivors, thus not every map is the same size. This is different from Dead by Daylight.[18]

• Official website