Paratopic: Overdub PC (Build 25376939)

A Strange Trip Back Into Paratopic

Long before the Backrooms became a thing and before analog horror took over the internet, there were the tapes.

Now, the tapes are back.

Paratopic: Overdub takes the familiar foundation and rebuilds large parts of it with new textures, animations, environments, characters, and additional secrets.

The result is still a first-person narrative horror game, but one that feels noticeably different from its predecessor. The story unfolds through a surreal journey into the night where almost nothing can be trusted. There are no easy answers, either. What matters is the story pieced together from everything seen, heard, and experienced along the way.

Country roads, boring clerks, sightseeing, solitaire, murder. Paratopic: Overdub throws all of these things together into a bizarre travelogue through the remains of Americana. Motels, gas stations, late-night diners, empty roads, and dying industries form the backdrop for a trip that becomes increasingly strange.

More Than Just a Remix

Paratopic has already earned its place as an influential indie horror title. The original appeared on numerous game-of-the-year lists and won the 2019 Independent Games Festival Excellence in Audio award. It also became an important influence on the retro horror wave that followed.

Overdub clearly wants to build on that reputation.

The new material gives the experience considerably more room to breathe. A playthrough can stretch to around three hours, compared with the much shorter original, and there is noticeably more content to examine. Several of the added sections have plenty of ideas packed into them, and Paratopic: Overdub frequently rewards paying attention.

The atmosphere remains one of its strongest points. Tension hangs over nearly every scene, while the surreal tone and frantic pacing capture much of what made the original memorable. The sections involving the girl with the gun, in particular, receive considerably more attention this time around, and those moments fit surprisingly well into the expanded version.

There is also a sense that Overdub was created with years of theories and discussion surrounding the original already in mind. Some of the new material feels like a response to the questions players have spent years asking about Paratopic.

Where Overdub Falls Short

Unfortunately, the changes do not always work.

The biggest problem is how much of the original’s subtlety has been stripped away. The first Paratopic had remarkably sharp writing. Almost every line served a purpose, and even seemingly pointless conversations or routes added something to the world or its characters.

A Different Take on a Familiar Nightmare