This is a game I have been meaning to play for a long time. And I knew next to nothing about it except for its atmosphere!

Said atmosphere is perhaps the biggest strength of this game. A world devoid of all colors except red is so... evocative and incredible. It alone sells a unique experience, and I am kind of surprised they even give you the option to play it with colors.
Because outside of that, the gameplay is serviceable but ends up in a constant loop. Which especially results in a constant walking from point A to B in the last stretch.
They did a nice thing where you can figure out about clues or points of interest with sound cues, which I completely missed for a large part because everything is immediately marked on your map regardless.

But it would be an oversight to not mention the sort of "dark world" of this game. Ring a bell and you are transported to a version of the world where all is shrouded in darkness, and instead of violent senseless humans you encounter skeletons and dark spirits, as well as lost souls and wraiths which are peaceful.
Going back to the atmosphere, it is impressive that they still manage to evoke a drastic change with this small color palette. All lights and whites vanish, now everything is black and dark grey. Look up in the sky and you can faintly see a sun, consumed by a grey sky.

Now, the game also has a story. And this is where spoilers come into play.
A story about colonial settlers in Virginia, most of which have done evil to some extent until the breaking point of someone murdering his daughter because she was was having a child with a native, having her spirit curse the land, killing all Settlers except for her sister and regressing every other human to something animalistic.
Violence towards natives does play a huge role in this game, it is an inescapable part of it. Only at first I was unsure whether or not it was criticizing said violence because not once did the game refer to them other than "Indians", a term which I imagine was seen as crude and outdated even 10 years ago. Despite that, the racism and cruelty of the settlers still shines through because they will most often refer to natives as savages.
Most of the game you spend figuring out what happened. The only other friendly living NPC in the game is the Maiden in Red, who turns out to be the sister of the woman that cursed everyone. Once you find out what happened, you then have to approach each settler, hear out what sins they did, and judge whether you let their soul be at peach or be at eternal torment. Ranging from genuine mistakes that caused harm to rape and murder, and the already mentioned father of the woman who not only killed her for an affair with a native, but his wife for hiding it from him.

When you judged over all settlers, you can approach the girl cursing everyone. Tabitha is her name. When you try to absolve her, you cannot, as her sister, the Maiden in Red, is still holding on to her. You tell her that she has to let go. And at first, it appears that is what happens. Re-entering the final area, which previously was always shrouded in darkness, is finally visible in sunlight. And then, an ambiguous twist in the last moment, revealing that the darkness still lurks.

At first, this feels like a cheap shock. That they felt this eerie horror game could not just have a happy ending. To my surprise, I very easily found a comment from the developer in a steam forum discussing said ending. Where I also found out that in the post game, the ambiguous ending does get explained, saying that she still cannot let go. Which is unfortunate, as this abrupt ending left me wandering in other possible assumptions.
Either way, the developer explained that they chose to do this because they felt resolving such grief so easily did not feel right. And it is understandable. The grief in question is your sister and mother being brutally murdered by your father. The developer also says that they understand disappointment with this ending, and that they were uncertain about it themselves once the game was launched. Which sounds like the most common thing ever in creative work, but the explaination makes me understand it more. Although I was not even upset with that ending. What seems more upsetting is a blatant simple explaination just handed to you in post game.


All that being said, I am glad I played this game. Its striking atmosphere was nice to venture through and its story was also engaging to unravel. It falls short with its repetition and lack of new things to give you, but it was undeniably ambitious despite that. It is sad to see that it was apparently a commercial failure, seeing that the studio has never made another game and Betrayer itself even being pulled off the steam store, before being released on GOG for free this year.
I don't know if and when I ever replay it, but I do not at all regret having experienced it.