Last Year: The Nightmare Review – Disgustingly Fun

The experience when playing action-horror survivals can be astonishing with a few games coming to mind when considering Friday the 13th, Dead by Daylight and Left 4 Dead. And through the success of the genre Elastic Games has brought their own creative spin to the table in hopes of entertaining and terrifying gamers with their own nightmare. This is Last Year: The Nightmare.

Last Year: The Nightmare is available only on Discord (at least at the time of this review) with plans of coming to Steam shortly after. Will it make its way to console? Only time will tell. As for now, The Nightmare is a reason to invest in a PC Rig!

You start off in a lobby of six players where you can choose between five high school students and one of you becoming the killer. Each character is voiced by an amazing cast that’s completed voice work for several titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy XV and TellTale’s The Walking Dead. But in Last Year, they’re known as Amber, Troy, Samantha, Chad and Nick. There are three maps available as of now: The Gym, Library and the Bell Tower. But the more you play, you’ll likely enjoy randomizing each session, enjoying gameplay over environment.

As the mission begin you can select from four different classes: Assault, Medic, Scout and Technician. Thankfully the game doesn’t allow everyone to choose from the same class which could be detrimental. How can you survive when all five opt out of becoming a Medic? Creating the right support team will lead you to safety in no time.

Th objective in Last Year is simple, escape! The process in each map is to find various items, get them to a certain destination to create an opening and run like hell! Oh, and try not to die.

Gratefully dying in Last Year: The Nightmare is somewhat forgiving, as long as another survivor considers helping you make it through the end. When players die, they respawn trapped inside of a locked door somewhere throughout the map. The only way to escape is by making friends, working as a team and hoping someone opens the door.

However, if you don’t spawn as the high school hopefuls it’s because you are The Nightmare (and we’re miles away from Elm Street). You don’t just appear as one boogeyman, but three: A slasher, a strangler and a giant each with their own unique abilities. As one of the three enemies die the player can select another killer while the rest respawn. The Giant can break through walls while the strangler can pull a survivor from almost anywhere. Then there’s the Slasher, an axe murderer more sadistic than what you’d expect on the 13th. As if this wasn’t enough, each killer can also activate Predator Mode, allowing them to move around the map undetected while placing traps and stalking individuals.

The playing field is balanced for survivors as well as there are crafting items, medicine and other various items scattered across the map. To be honest I never really saw the need for most of the items hidden away in boxes and lockers until realizing the new weapons I could rig. As you earn more crafting points, your skills can be upgraded for a greater advantage against the killer like creating small bombs or stun gun.  But the true key in surviving The Nightmare is sticking together as a team and communication.

There are quite a few multiplayer games that draw you in like Last Year: The Nightmare. Dead By Daylight is full of excitement in every session, especially when there’s plenty of online interaction. Last Year delivers that same gift. Playing as a survivor and opening the gate only to watch the entire team die at the exit mark was gruesome. But playing as the killer and planning the most memorable death possible will leave you with a sickening smile.

Playing Last Year utilizing GeForce GTX 1080 TI on ultra looks amazing. I loved the suspense and dark tone as I couldn’t see far ahead, only the shadow of the killer before they came after me. Aside from using a mouse/keyboard setup, gamers can use a gaming controller to play Last Year as well.

We’ve come across a few bugs and glitches, worst of all being disconnected from the network while trying to connect to a session. There were also a few moments where I was stuck in a barrier and couldn’t free myself, nor could a killer attack me. Aside from these minor issues, I can’t fault the overall experience and replay value.