Charon’s Staircase from Soedesco and Indigo Studios is a first-person horror game on PlayStation 5. Learn more in our Charon’s Staircase review!
Charon’s Staircase from Soedesco and Indigo Studios is a first-person horror game on PlayStation 5. You play as Special Agent Codename Desmond, who, by order of the Ministry, ends up entering Oak Grove, a dark and enigmatic location where nothing is what it seems. On the verge of joining the European Union, the Ministry issued a simple order: erase all traces of its terrible activities. One event in particular was of a special interest: the situation at Oak Grove and the sinister experiments of one Doctor Lewelin.
What do you need to take care of once inside of Oak Grove? You must find the logbook of the guard of the grove, which should be in the office of his wooden house. There are also some official Ministry documents that should be inside of doctor Lewelin’s laboratory at the manor on the other side of the inner lake. There are also the dossiers of the secret experiments that were carried out. Those should be stored in the office of the experimental hospital. And once you’ve found everything, you must use a secret passage: Charon’s Staircase. And only Doctor Lewelin knew how to access it!
How will you play Charon’s Staircase? Your character will move with the left analog stick, and you can look around with the right one. If you need to run, press and hold the R1 button. To focus your attention on something, press the L1 button. The X button is for interacting, as well as for using items. Speaking of which, any items that you collect will be added to your inventory, which you can check with the Triangle button. When reviewing something, you can use the right analog stick to, say, rotate an item, or to scroll through documents.
What type of puzzles will you need to solve? Without spoiling things too much so that you can play this one on your own, I will mention that you’ll have to solve the always classic “this door is locked and you need to find the right key for it” situations. As for the rest of the puzzles, paying attention to your surroundings will prove to be crucial, since you need to find the four-digits codes to open some digital locks, and these will be hidden in, say, paintings or in the number of the same-colored items in this or that room. There’s also a piano puzzle – because you need to have that in a game where you explore a creepy mansion.
The trophy list includes 5 Bronze trophies, 7 Silver trophies and 1 Gold trophy for you to unlock. Most of the trophies will unlock as you make your way through the game and complete puzzles, gain access to more rooms, retrieve the documents needed to complete your secret mission, and play the piano here and there. You do need to keep in mind one trophy in particular that requires that you collect all pictures for all characters, since that’s the one that you’ll really have to work on. Do be aware that you can, in theory, sequence-break the game, and end up, say, completing an area without collecting the specific document for which you were exploring that area.
Charon’s Staircase is a first-person horror game in which you will take on the role of Special Agent Codename Desmond who must find and remove all of the documentation and evidence of the evil acts performed by one Doctor Lewelin. You’ll spend around 5-7 hours playing this one depending on your experience with puzzle solving, as you dive deeper and deeper into what really happened. Charon’s Staircase is out on PlayStation 5 with a $34.99 asking price. There’s also a PlayStation 4 versions available as a separate purchase for the same price.
Disclaimer
This Charon’s Staircase review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Soedesco.
