With that in mind, I pressed on all the same. So what the game is trying to relay to me from the get-go is that the neighbor captured the young boy for being nosy, and placed him on the other side of the street after locking up someone up in the basement? The setup certainly doesn’t give off a good first impression, made worse by some texture issues during the first cutscene and some odd design bugs that sees you merging with the floor periodically. Did I miss something? It instantly became confusing. That however is clearly not the case, because immediately following on from this cutscene you’re once again thrown into the role of the young boy and respawn outside your home, right across the street from your neighbor. I say that because from the moment you get grabbed, a small cutscene showcases the neighbor once again locking the basement door, presumably with the boy in there due to the sound of a screaming child.

What follows on is as confusing as it is open-ended. Before long the neighbor notices you peeping, jumps through the window and grabs you. Doing what any rude prepubescent child would do, the young boy decides to get up close and peer through the window. It’s hard to see exactly what’s going on but at first glace it would seem as though your neighbor is tying someone up and tossing them into the basement. Situated up the street, you kick your football down the road until you stumble upon a strange noise coming from your neighbors home. The game opens up relatively quickly to begin with, you seemingly take on the role of a young boy that appears to have recently moved into the neighbourhood. Did you ever watch what’s considered to be Shia LaBeouf’s only good movie, Disturbia? That’s the immediate impression that I got when playing Hello Neighbor, being that the premise of the game is trying to work out exactly what secret your creepy neighbor is hiding in his basement.

Hello neighbor the basement