Horror is a genre that’s been severely abused by the entertainment industries; homogenised by undisciplined storytellers who use shock and controversy as a sales technique. Real horror is more than flying blood and spilled guts. It’s a careful and clever deconstruction of the comforting veneer we paint our perceptions with. The powerful narrative and sanity-rending imagery of Clive Barker’s new FPS makes Jericho a game that finally earns the right to label itself a horror.

While it’s clearly a superbly realised squadbased first-person shooter, Jericho subtly twists its existence into an unrecognisable shape that’s both beautiful and terrible to behold. Its movie-quality storyline and console-comparable action are so cleverly woven together it becomes impossible to separate them. It’s not a question of gameplay over story, or character over combat; Jericho is quite simply a transfixing, cinematic interactive story. It also makes it impossible to review Jericho in a compartmentalised fashion – to explain the mechanics of play is to tell the story of Barker’s twisted tale of an occult task force.

Much of what we see and hear when the Jericho team lands at the site of Al-Khali (the world’s most ancient city) is reminiscent of Gears Of War, subtly decorated with the lurid sub-reality of early survival horror titles like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. The perishing dust bowl of Al-Khali provides a generous training ground. It subtly introduces new gamers to the fundamental movement and combat controls without feeling like a guided tutorial. Due to the tightly structured storyline, the initial events of Jericho don’t require players to make use of the most intricate methods of paranormal combat. Instead, the leader of the squad is the only concern, and attention can be given to learning the simple commands for directing the team, while fingers become undetectably accustomed to the well-placed control keys.  

Naturally, Clive Barker’s name wouldn’t be getting top billing if his incredible brand of dark fantasy wasn’t permeating every strand and fibre of this slick, emblematic shooter. Once Al-Khali has been breached, an astonishing story twist is laced into the gameplay at a very early juncture, transforming it from a simple FPS into a squad-based thriller. Captain Ross – the team leader under your control – is killed in action, reducing the team to six. Due to the paranormal rift forming around Al-Khali, Ross’s disembodied spirit is then able to move between the members of his team to control them.

Each member of the Jericho team has their own arcane speciality, which players are required to call upon depending on the situation at hand. Lieutenant Black, for instance, is a telekinetic sniper who can control her bullets mid-flight, while Frank Delgado is a pyromancer who can shoot fire from his demonpossessed arm. The diversity of the team makes for an eclectic mixture of might and magic, while opening up action sequences that any normal FPS would be unequipped to include.

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