Cloudy review The Last Case
Our verdict · Great
The Last Case hands you a police badge, a body camera and the worst assignment in the building: children have gone missing, and the trail leads to an old, abandoned school. Somewhere inside, a madman is waiting.
SOFTPLAY’s first-person horror is small, tight and very sure of what it wants to be. It isn’t chasing blockbuster spectacle. It wants you creeping down a corridor with a torch in one hand and a pistol in the other, wondering whether the noise behind that classroom door is the building settling or something far worse. More often than not, it gets you there.
Our The Last Case hub has the background on the game.
Who it’s for
This one is for horror fans who’d rather investigate than run. The Last Case is built around careful observation, not sprinting between objective markers, so it suits anyone who likes poking through rooms for evidence while the tension quietly ratchets up. If you enjoy crime mysteries and atmospheric adventures, the detective angle may well tempt you in even if you don’t usually go looking for scares.
It’s also for players who prefer slow-burn dread to constant action. If you want a shooter wearing a horror costume, look elsewhere. Here the pistol is there for emergencies, not the main event.
What works
The body camera is the star. Everything you see is recorded footage, complete with the REC light, battery meter and zoom readout on screen, and that gives the whole thing an immediate, grounded feel. You aren’t watching a cinematic hero from a safe distance; you’re seeing the case through the eyes of the officer doing the job.
That someone is the point. The footage is framed as material reviewed back at the station to show rookie officers how a real professional handles a case. It’s a clever, slightly grim twist, because it turns the whole investigation into a cautionary tale before anything has even gone wrong. It’s the game’s most distinctive idea and the thing that lifts it above the usual haunted-building fare.
The school does the rest. Worn walls, neglected rooms and dark corners make it a convincing place of decay, and there’s a particular chill to a building that should be full of noisy children and simply isn’t. The missing-children case gives that unease real weight, too. You aren’t exploring out of idle curiosity; you’re trying to work out what happened to them, and that sense of responsibility keeps you moving.
The investigation rewards patience. You’ll comb rooms for clues, read notes and crack your way into locked spaces, with keypad safes and a sliding-tile puzzle among the obstacles between you and the truth. Small details matter, and the satisfaction of spotting something that looked insignificant and realising why it counts is exactly what a game like this needs.
And it lets the atmosphere do the heavy lifting. There’s no reliance on endless chases or a barrage of loud noises, and the threat of someone dangerous round the next corner gives even the quietest room an edge. Darkness, silence and the dread of an unopened door carry much of the load, and they carry it well.
What doesn’t
The detective work is more about atmosphere than hard deduction. Paying attention is essential, but seasoned mystery fans hoping to really wrestle with the evidence may find the investigation leans more on mood than on making them think. It’s a satisfying search rather than a demanding one.
The single setting is a double-edged sword. One abandoned school is a brilliant stage for dread, but a confined space and a steady rhythm of searching for clues can start to feel familiar once the corridors stop being strangers.
The training-footage framing also deserves more of the spotlight than it gets. It’s such a good hook that you’ll want it woven more tightly into the case itself. And for all its smart touches, The Last Case doesn’t reinvent psychological horror. It takes familiar ingredients and puts them together with real confidence.
Verdict
The Last Case is a lean, unsettling horror investigation that knows exactly where its strengths lie. The body camera gives it a distinctive identity, the abandoned school is properly creepy, and the missing-children mystery gives every room a reason to be searched. It won’t stretch hardened detectives, and its single setting has limits, but it’s confident, atmospheric and a cracking way to spend a dark evening.
At £8.39 on the Xbox Store for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, with Xbox Play Anywhere so one purchase covers your Windows PC too, it’s an easy one to recommend to anyone who likes their horror with a case file attached. Pack a torch. I’m giving it 8/10.
