Last Updated on Dec 9, 2025 @ 16:20:51 PM.
The renaissance of the horror genre in gaming has continued to grow, stride on stride, with each passing release. She’s Leaving, while an entirely different game to many of the genre’s top-performing titles, looks to continue and benefit from the resurgence, but how does it do? After several hours and two playthroughs of the game’s on-the-shorter-side story, I have some thoughts to share.
In She’s Leaving, you play as Charles Dalton, a forensic blood spatter expert on the site of a recent crime, as a storm approaches, and you’re limited on time to find answers and understand exactly what is going on around you. Without any spoilers, Charles is there to solve a murder, and potentially uncover a serial killer at the same time, one that strikes at weddings and engagement parties, for reasons unknown.
For the majority of your playing time, you’re going to be exploring the manor, a dark, foreboding, and at times, downright unnerving building that’ll have you looking over your shoulder as much as any AAA experience of the last few years. This manor will quickly become a maze, with the standard fare of FPS-horror being present: locked rooms, puzzles to complete, safes to unlock, and items to find. All this, while attempting to locate a missing girl, prove a serial killer’s presence and existence, and settle an old mystery of Charles’ past.
She’s Leaving does take some pretty big swings, and it does, unfortunately, miss a few of them. As mentioned, Charles is a forensic blood spatter expert, but his skills here are reduced to finding a few instances of blood throughout the manor and identifying which of three different types of spatter they are. Do that, and you’ll continue the story. Don’t succeed in identifying, and you’ll still continue the story, but you’ll do so encumbered, slower-moving, and hazier sight, for some reason. It’s a mechanic that feels tacked on, and wholly unnecessary for the most part, beyond ticking the forensic box for the character.
She’s Leaving has some pretty significant performance issues on PS5, supposedly fixed in a patch today, whereby entering ‘Rest rooms’ (the safe areas) would cause a notable frame drop. It also happened whenever I’d approach and interact with an item that furthered the story, and on two occasions, caused game-breaking bugs, including me floating beneath the manor itself at one point.
As for the story itself, She’s Leaving won’t shock or surprise you all too much, with predictable twists and obvious story beats, but the short runtime actually aids with this, saving you from getting bored or wondering if/when the next predictable story beat will happen. It must be said, while the story is predictable, what the game excels at is what you’d hope most from a first-person horror game – the atmosphere.
Whether it was exploring the manor, the docks, or the destroyed remnants of the nearby farm, I was continually worried about what was over my shoulder, around the next corner, or, unfortunately, on several occasions, right in front of me. Chased by a masked serial killer, introduced without fanfare or much explanation, the unknown is always the scariest part, and in She’s Leaving, not knowing where, or when, he’ll appear is half the fright. The atmosphere and the antagonist’s relatively blank slate (until endgame anyway) is a huge boon to the game and allowed me to regularly make things worse for myself.
She’s Leaving
Put your forensic skills to work in She’s Leaving, a terrifying first-person survival horror thriller where the line between hunter and hunted is razor thin. Investigate, survive, and escape before the darkness consumes you.
Summary
She’s Leaving does have a fair amount that could
HOURS PLAYED: 8
PLAYED ON: PS5
- Tense, intimidating atmosphere.
- Jason-esque villain always impresses.
- Performance issues can be jarring at times.
- Pointless cutscenes with minimal character animation.
- Predictable story.
She’s Leaving releases on PS5 today and is already available on PC.
For more from us, don’t miss out on our review of Cross Blitz, or the PS5 port of STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl.
Luke Addison is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Thumb Wars. Having previously been a part of multiple outlets over the years, including building an entire gaming team from nothing to something, he thought it best to forge his own path and answer only to himself. As likely to be found playing the latest game as he is in the kitchen relaxing (by cooking), he always brings the same bold and brash attitude to everything he does, with a heavy leaning on sarcasm and dry wit!
