The PC Gaming Show presented a handful of horror games including a first look at Total Chaos. The trailer played near the show’s end, showing the protagonist roaming through darkness, heavy fog, and living dead corridors. Thankfully, Total Chaos’ Steam page offers more details about the game.
What is Total Chaos About?
We play as The Survivor of Fort Oasis, an island for miners that is now a desolate wasteland. The Survivor’s mission is to investigate the island’s fall while surviving the lurking monsters. Meanwhile, you are searching for someone sending a strange message over the radio. You don’t know if they need help but you are drawn to Fort Oasis after their first contact.
These creatures have taken numerous forms; from giant spiders to the living decaying dead. As you try to survive, you slowly wonder if you ever truly left the Fort Oasis or lost your memories. The only way to find the truth is to run and fight the horrors hunting you down.
Total Chaos’ Planned Experience
Developer Trigger Happy Interactive has posted on the game’s Steam page that Total Chaos will have nine chapters. Instead of having multiple characters to interact with the player for the story, Trigger Happy Interactive wants players to explore and find notes. But beware of hallucinations and the monsters chasing you. The game has a planned mental health warning for subjects that could be sensitive to players. The following sensitive subjects in the game are mental health struggles and self-harm.
Luckily, The Survivor can craft items and upgrade their arsenal. However, you must be wary of your inventory. Like Resident Evil, managing your resources is essential to your survival rate. It’s better to stay alive than to use all your bullets and blunt weapons against the monsters. To better chances, learn how each monster reacts to different actions to find their weaknesses. Total Chaos may offer safe zones for crafting and storing items.
What Inspired Total Chaos?
According to the Steam page, Total Choas was originally an award-winning conversion mod. If you search for the mod, the ModDb website will pop up. It will lead you to a 2018 Doom II mod named after the game. On top of the mod’s description, four gaming news sites gave it positive reviews.
Rock Paper Shotgun was mostly impressed by Trigger Happy Interactive’s determination and creative use of the GZDoom mod engine. Half of the concept has stayed the same including the person on the radio. Total Chaos consisted of 6 chapters with over 8 hours of playtime to beat the game.
From Doom Mod to First Game Project
Trigger Happy Interactive shows they put care and effort into Total Chaos’ development. They began their passionate horror project in 2016. It was a genius move to have the Doom II modding community gather playtesters for feedback. On the mod alone, players could play from the alpha build up to version 1.40.
Trigger Happy Interactive released three editions of Total Chaos: Standalone, Director’s Cut, and Director’s Cut Retro Edition. However, despite being well-loved, the mod suffered from certain bug issues that would frustrate players, even at the startup menu. The G2Doom engine also had problems with excessive memory.
They soon stopped updating the mod on Aug. 8th, 2022. Now an official standalone game, Total Chaos still holds inspiration from Doom with the mod’s story concept. The screaming flesh wall from Hell, the shotgun, and being dragged to explore the unknown. The heavy fog and slow descent into madness did send Silent Hill vibes to me. However, there are no known details if Total Chaos took elements from the franchise including the radio.
