We don’t get many independent games coming out of Japan. Gnosia is the only one that immediately springs to mind. I’m looking forward to playing Urban Myth Dissolution Centre when it releases this week and Sonokuni later this year, but the development scene in the country just doesn’t seem to thrive as much as in countries closer to home.
Of course, this could be an issue of perception. I know a lot more about indie games in the UK because I live here. I visit studios near to me, I hear about games on the grapevine from just chatting with developers or players. I’m sure the same happens for Japanese games journalists.
Additionally, nearly every press release I receive is written in English, my native tongue. There could be myriad Japanese-language games that pass me by because I don’t speak the language, or because PRs (correctly) assume that I won’t understand their releases. H*ck, the third Tokyo Indie Games Summit is happening next month. Maybe I’m just out of the loop.
That’s why I always pay attention when a Japanese indie game breaks containment and appears in my social circles. This is exactly what happened with Hole, a creepy extraction shooter that felt right up my street.
Hole
Hole doesn’t explain itself. You are in a concrete room with three crude drawings of faces plastered on the wall. There is a handgun and a boarded up doorway. Figure out how to reload (it’s more complicated than you might think), and you can shoot down the boards and head down the corridor. There’s a floating microwave. When you turn it on, it spits out a mountain of potatoes and creates an inscrutable hole beneath your feet. Press F to fall.
Then you’re in an office. It’s long abandoned, your footsteps the only sound as you creep down corridors and past cubicles. You don’t know what you’re looking for, what will lurk behind every corner, what the point of it all is.
You’ll find things. It might be a fridge full of data. Perhaps it’s a delivery package filled with glowing green health pluses. It might be someone else searching these empty corridors, their reasons as cryptic as your own. That’s when your pistol comes in.
Hole is entirely single-player. Your opponents in the office with you are controlled by AI. The game decides whether they baa like a sheep or make a series of beeps and boops. But that doesn’t make it any less skin-crawling when you open a door and come face to face with another explorer pointing a pistol between your eyes in the office bathroom.
Eventually, you work out that your goal is to find the microwave that sent you to this accursed place. It will be floating somewhere on this floor, and you’ll have to wait for it to heat up its contents before you can extract. This is quite a noisy process, so expect company. Survive until it has carved another hole in the floor, and you can head back to the concrete room you started in.
This is clearly your base. You can spend your money and data to upgrade it with rusted staircases and uncover locked doors that will presumably open up in time. But once you’ve been on your spending spree, the only thing left to do is head back to the office.
A Sense Of Dread
I watch a YouTuber known as ‘Shiey’, whose shtick is exploring abandoned places or sneaking onto cargo trains to travel the world. It’s perfect for vibes-based second-screen viewing while I work, and through his GoPro lens I’ve seen the interiors of nuclear power plants, the views of cities from the roofs of abandoned skyscrapers, and the lush landscapes of Georgia from the empty carriage of a freight train.
Hole gives me a similar vibe to Shiey’s explorations in Chernobyl and other abandoned places. It nails the eerie feeling of walking down a corridor of a place that should be bustling with activity, but is completely barren. The stories that unfold from finding a half-drunk cup of coffee or papers left on a desk are compelling. And the constant risk of getting caught, for Shiey by a security guard or in Hole by another extractor, weighs heavy. You’re overly cautious. The smallest sound puts you instantly on edge. Could it be a fridge behind that door, or an enemy? Could it be the microwave you’re searching for?
Like a lo-fi Control, Hole has hooked its weird claws into me. I can’t help but return to this creepy office time and time again. I don’t even care that much about upgrading my base, I just love the creeping tension of this empty subterranean building. This game is a masterclass in stretching your nerves until they’re as taut as the strings on a guitar, constantly twisting that tuning key as you turn every corner and check every nook.
If you’re a fan of Control, urban exploration, or weird indie FPS games, then Hole is the game for you. If there’s a better way to spend a fiver in 2025, I’ve not found it yet.
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