Betrayer

An absolute masterpiece of sound design. I haven’t played since Thief a game so acoustically developed! Hunting shadows in the forest with little else to go on but your bow and your ears is an extremely rewarding experience. They kinda crippled you visually with the black & white colour scheme (in which they occasionally use hints of red to nudge you along the way and which can be adapted to full colour if you so wish), but then they built a whole acoustic world for you to compensate for it.
The game’s story is based loosely on the mystery of the Roanoke colony, so I believe the colour palette is supposed to be reminiscent of the engravings we have from that early period of colonisation, but I think the way it looks is also aimed at enhancing the acoustic experience the game set itself to provide. A fully coloured world would have distracted you from the acoustic design, as it would have given you more visual means to deal with its dangers, but with the world painted this way you must rely mainly on what you hear in order to survive in it. They striped the colour from the world only to give you the sounds to colour it with! And, believe me, your brain will gradually learn to detach itself from the scant visuals and pay more and more attention to the richer palette of what can be heard around you, with the world ultimately starting to make more sense as a body of sounds rather than colours. And that makes for a highly original and properly immersive experience. Sadly, though, even on the highest difficulty setting, the 'unseen' enemies don't quite do enough damage to really make the slow-paced stealth, 'based on hearing', approach a necessity.
Also, relying mainly on what you hear, the game is kind of an ethereal, disembodied experience, and was criticised at the time for not having enough flesh on its long (black and) white bones. I think this suits the game just fine, though, because it is basically a "ghost story" and, since dealing with ghosts is mainly an 'auditory' kind of endeavour, using an unsubstantial, de-realised setting is a proper way of 'telling’ it. Fleshing it more would have shifted the game’s focus, I think, and would ultimately have turned it into a different kind of experience than what the developers had in mind.

This is one of the most atypical FPS I've played. It's not fast paced, and even tho there is combat (and is really satisfactory, too) the game is hardly about it. Think of it as a detective story with lots of supernatural elements. The historical setting in which the story unfolds fits perfectly, and the decision to make the game black and white (although you can play it in full color, too) makes the atmosphere even more unnerving. In short, play it. It's a solid game with a lot of scary moments.

Betrayer
Aprooved :D

Okay just finished this game and I think now I am qualified enough to share my experience as a review for this game.
Well it's 2020 and this game was released in 2014 so that's almost over half a decade now that this game is out in the market. So it's not something new which should be reviewed since so many game reviewing sites have already shared their opinions but I still would like to give my two cents as well.
It's a solid game with somewhat decent but half cooked story. I am not saying the story sucks but it can get little overwhelming to grasp for people who are not used to such type of narration style where you extract information from everywhere in fragments and then combine them together to make sense out of it.
If you are one of those people then congratulations this game is for you. I personally did not have any problem with this game or its story, infact I found it very interesting. The horror part is also well put and you are always on constant alert while exploring the areas cuz you never know what might come next to you.
It does have some learning curve and in the beginning it can get frustrating when you get one hit killed by your enemies but if you are patient enough by the end you will have better weapons and equipments to handle any situation, ofcourse it's no call of duty but it'll a lot easier for you to handle any situation or hordes of enemies if needed.
So you're done reading, so what are you waiting for go ahead add it to your library ;)

Betrayer is a very odd game set in an open world with a severe aura of mystery. An entire colony has disappeared except for one person who remembers nothing, and you need to find out what's going on. After finding some things in the tutorial, you are able to listen in both the light and dark realms for clues as to what you need to do next. Usually, I hunt for clues in the light realm and then find ghosts in the dark realm that need help remembering their lives to pass on, which in turn helps you find out what has happened to the people.
At first it might be overwhelming not having a journal or anything guiding the "main quest", which lead me to be afraid to play it for awhile, but the more you play, the more you can get used to it and feel less underwhelmed. You need to listen for sound cues in both realms to get an idea of what to do next. In some cases, the next area is blocked off until you clear out enemies or corruption in other areas, and the game tends to prioritize those, but you can find other things to do while trying to get more powerful by buying better runes and weapons from merchants. Different tasks involve solving mysteries with ghosts, clearing corruption from pillars, searching for buried treasure, searching for heads for headless ghosts (sound cues will usually lead you to their head if nothing else in the area has been found or they're completed), digging up belongings of the dead to give to them, and occasionally clearing out undead Spaniards from forts.
Combat is pretty simple, but also has a small depth of complexity to it. The weapons function as they would in Colonial America, requiring a long time to reload, but they also do video game damage, usually ignoring armor for better weapons (there's a deflect mechanic. Weaker weapons have a chance to deflect off armor). Projectiles are easily dodged, with no hitscanners being found in the game so far, which is an odd but fun choice, as my casual DOOM-ass found that going in with my guns blazing and swapping weapons quickly and running away to reload, also using my throwables could actually work in this game sometimes, especially when you have stronger weapons in later portions of the game. My favorite enemy to fight has to be this big buff spaniard zombie that throws a big rock at you. At first it killed me a lot, but when I found I could dodge his stones and keep a distance while shooting a musket and reloading while dodging, I could kick his butt. There are also skeletons, native americans, and giant spiders, but I found some runes that make me do insane amounts of melee damage, so I stock up on a lot of water and just go to town with my knife. Maybe it's too simple for some, but I love when I can be like this in a game.
Visuals are also something to talk about. Betrayer, by default, and in earlier versions of the game has a Sin City color palate, being black and white with red bleeding through everything. I changed it to look more appealing to my eyes, and the colors can be very appealingly vibrant, to the point it almost feels like a sin to play in black and white. The light world also has this very beautiful wind effect I've never seen before in a game, with trees shaking and grass waving around. It's a little exaggerated, but it still looks extremely beautiful, and it helps the contrast with the dark world look spookier with the disturbing amount of stillness. It might look a little bit dated by now, but for 2014, these visuals were pretty good, even though the Unreal Engine 4 had already been announced.

Yeah, well.. I am on a mission to taste each N' every one of the games that lying around in my library & Remove some of them in the process.
This game certainly worthy enough to be in my library but I might not just finish the game, ever! First & foremost reason is the empty hollow open world with no waypoint or whatsoever. Other than that, this game impresses me in other aspects. Like the unique graphics style, simple combat with enough graphical details being added to the weapons, Stealth somewhat works & I liked the goofy sound design aswell.
Afterall, I can recommend this game anyone who've plenty of time or a new gamer, looking forward to play something off the chart. :)

Atmosphere/mood elevate this above the repetitive nature of the game design. Gameplay boils down to talk to a ghost, help them remember how they died, move to the next area and repeat. Throw in some alright first person shooting for good measure and that's Betrayer. I was invested enough in the story to keep playing and for 5 bucks it's worth it to play something so unique, just don't expect anything groundbreaking.