One-Eyed Likho Review

Don't go looking for evil. You might just find it.

Every bit of the introductory segment in One-Eyed Likho is a little bit disorienting — a bell tolls, a smith hammers an axe on the anvil, and a raven pecks at the moon. Between the chain of events, only a smash cut is used to tie them together, engendering a sense of unease as your eyes follow the dark and discombobulating sequence. Soon, you’re sitting face-to-face and sharing a drink with your friend, The Tailor, and although the image is a bit blurry due to your assumed drunkenness, it feels as if a bit of sanity has crept back into the scene. Things change quickly, thanks to another smash cut, and massive claws tap upon the table in front of you. In your drunken stupor, you determine it is best to go searching for evil in the world. The sound design, visuals, and camerawork push the scene forward in ways that feel a bit nightmarish — something that will hold true throughout the entirety of the game’s runtime. Its greyscale visual style also lends itself well to this sullen atmosphere, enhancing the mood of any given moment through its excellent use of light and dark imagery, and the interplay between those two elements.

Publisher: Morteshka

Developer: Morteshka

Platform: Played on PC (Steam)

Availability: Released on July 28, 2025 for Windows PC (Steam).

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Set in Russia and based on an old Slavic fairy tale, One-Eyed Likho embraces the fantastical, leading you through mesmerizing environments as you try to find a way out of the desperate and horrific circumstances that have befallen you, thanks in no small part to your own hubris. Playing as The Smith, you start the journey to find evil in earnest by traveling through the Dark Forest, dragging The Tailor along for the trek. It’s not long before it becomes obvious things are amiss as you arrive at a seemingly abandoned cabin in the woods. That cabin lays the groundwork for the story, drawing you into the world of Likho and other fables, but it also sets the table for what to expect going forward in the gameplay.

Tight corners, dark rooms, and grotesque figures make up much of the scenery, with very little visibility. Claustrophobic is the term best used here in these tight passages, a feeling accentuated even further if you play in the “Cinematic” visual mode, a tighter aspect ratio view of the game that further limits your field of vision. Here you’ll obtain the matchbox, which will serve as your only real tool for a majority of the game. This matchbox is integral not only for visibility, providing much-needed light in many scenarios, but also as your puzzle-solving mechanism; lighting debris or objects on fire is how you clear nearly every obstacle within One-Eyed Likho. While that dark and moody visual style produces some great ambience, it does do a bit of a disservice to the environments themselves, as so many details are outright obscured unless you take the time to painstakingly light a match every few seconds to explore.

Exploring in that manner is technically possible, seeing as there is little urgency baked into the gameplay systems. Despite the game feeding you constant reminders about the demon stalking you, Likho herself very seldom makes an appearance, and when she does it’s mostly non-threatening. Likho is slow, with a short range of vision, and she’s easily outmaneuvered. Coupled with the downright simple puzzles throughout the odyssey, this lack of tension undercuts the frankly stunning atmospheric elements of the game. There’s absolutely no reason to ever feel rushed or scared as you make your way through those dark corridors. No reason to fear what might lie around the corner or in the rafters.

One-Eyed Likho is visually stunning, utilizing surreal environments and stark contrast to create its eerie atmosphere.

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That breezy gameplay design does allow the player to explore more freely and there are quite a few collectibles to gather. Matryoshka dolls, manuscript pages, totems, and other items litter the environments. Many of these only require simple exploration and interaction to acquire, but others are more involved, needing minigames or slightly more advanced puzzles to be completed before being added to your collection. The additional fables and murals along the way are a great touch that add to that fantastical feeling the game so deftly navigates, but with so many of the fables being near identical, reading them feels more than a bit redundant. 

Dialogue feels much the same in many instances, with repeated ideas or lines rearing their head throughout your conversations with The Tailor. And while the game does offer you quite a few opportunities for choosing your dialogue, the options are quite vague and you’re never fully sure what your character will say when you pick one. The instances where you do get to sit down and talk to The Tailor still remain positive, despite the uncertainty behind your choices, as they offer some insight into the world you are currently in and the mentality of the characters themselves.

Of course, I feel the repetition is intentional. Those manuscripts all contain similar fables, all of which are not only connected with each other, but also feed into the overarching narrative you find yourself working through. Those dialogues and images are there to hammer home the point that you’re not coming out of this whole — something about you will have been irrevocably altered at the end of all of this. Despite the intent, I do find that repetition overdone and it diminishes the excitement of finding those hidden items, quelling any desire to find all of the pieces for any reason other than to say you did.

Those dialogues and images are there to hammer home the point that you’re not coming out of this whole — something about you will have been irrevocably altered at the end of all of this.

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This disconnect between the atmospheric elements and the actual mechanical gameplay is perhaps my largest disappointment with One-Eyed Likho. It is an absolutely visually stunning game, with striking environments and smart use of lighting that instills feelings of unease and fear into a player, but those facets are so thoroughly undermined by the mechanical components of the game that it drags everything down. Despite the minor technical hiccups like invisible barriers blocking puzzles or manuscripts lighting themselves on fire before I could read them, I would never go so far as to say the gameplay was bad — it simply left me wanting. I wanted to see more of Likho, I wanted more variety in gameplay, and I wanted to feel like I wasn’t wasting my time exploring. 

Thankfully, the visual identity of the game and the exceptionally strong closing segments leave a lasting impression. Despite my qualms with this title, the issues with the gameplay seem to blur a bit when I try to focus in on them — much like The Smith’s vision at the beginning of the game — and I’m left instead with a game whose distinctive imagery is seared into my memory.

Verdict

One-Eyed Likho is a fascinating, surreal, and almost hypnotic experience. The strong visual style and artistic direction of the game make it a truly enthralling title to behold. While the puzzles and overall gameplay are a bit lacking in terms of crafting an engaging or exciting adventure, the atmospheric elements are unmatched.

Image Credits: Morteshka

Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.