| Hello Neighbor | |
| Publisher: | tinyBuild |
| Engine: | Unreal Engine 4[1] |
| Genre: | Stealth, survival horror |
| Modes: | Single-player |
Hello Neighbor is a survival horror stealth game developed by Dynamic Pixels and published by tinyBuild. Initially released as public alphas from 2016 to 2017, it received a full release for Windows and Xbox One on December 8, 2017, and later for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android on July 26, 2018.
The players controls Nicky Roth, who witnesses some strange happenings at his next-door neighbor's house. His goal is to successfully sneak into the basement of the neighbor's house to uncover a dark secret while avoiding being caught by the neighbor.[2] The game's artificial intelligence (AI) modifies the neighbor's behavior based on the player's past actions, such as setting traps along paths the player followed in a previous attempt.[3] [4] [5]
While the initial alpha versions of Hello Neighbor were received positively, the final product was met with largely negative reviews. The gameplay, control scheme and technical performance have been heavily criticized, though the story, the story elements and the art style were praised. The game spawned a franchise, beginning with a prequel, Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek, released in December 2018. Two multiplayer spin-offs, Secret Neighbor and Hello Engineer, were released in October 2019 and October 2021, respectively. A standalone sequel, Hello Neighbor 2, was released on December 6, 2022.
In Hello Neighbor, the player character has moved into an old house across the street from a mysterious neighbor who is behaving abnormally and seems to be keeping a secret in his basement. The player's task is to find the details and brutal secrets of the neighbor's house and solve a series of puzzles to gather the items needed to unlock and access his basement. As the player explores the neighbor's house, they must not be spotted by the mysterious neighbor, or they will be chased down, and if the player is not quick enough to hide or escape, then they will be captured and be sent back out onto the street. The player can stun the neighbor by throwing objects at him for an easier escape. If the player is caught or suffers a serious injury, they will be sent back to their own house and will have to break in again. Upon starting again, the player must be more careful, as the neighbor will deduce movements from the last attempt and set up traps.[6] The player can use the game settings to turn on "friendly" neighbor mode, preventing the neighbor from setting these traps and causing him to be less aggressive in his pursuits. However, he is still to be avoided at all costs.[7]
The game is divided into four parts: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, and Act Finale. The game is played in a first-person perspective, and the player must aim a reticle at certain objects to interact with them or to throw or use a currently held item (for example, throwing a ball at a window or aiming a crowbar at nails to remove them). Up to four items can be kept in an inventory space. Items of the same kind cannot be stacked together in one slot.[8]
A boy named Nicky Roth is chasing a beach ball down the street before stopping nearby his neighbor, Theodore Peterson's home. He hears what he presumes is a child screaming and approaches Theodore's window, witnessing Theodore locking a child inside his basement only to get caught and thrown back on his side of the street. From here, Nicky must access Theodore's basement using a red key. Upon doing so, Nicky enters Theodore's labyrinthine basement and descends further into the maze, before reaching a door locked with locks of all colors while being pursued by Theodore, the Act ends with Nicky being captured by Theodore, and locked inside a desolate room with windows displaying fake outdoors, ending Act 1.
Nicky manages to escape his cell with the help of Theodore's son, Aaron and escape the basement, only to find that Mr. Peterson has erected a massive fence around his property to prevent escape. Nicky is forced to solve several puzzles to find a way to escape Mr. Peterson's property. Once he crosses the fence, he flees back to his home, and Mr. Peterson, hearing a loud smash implied to be caused by his son Aaron, does not give chase, instead staring Nicky dead in the eyes, before locking back up his house, ending Act 2.
Years later, an adult Nicky is evicted from his apartment and decides to return to his old family home. His childhood town had finally succumbed to its cruel fate, and he finds the house in disrepair while Mr. Peterson's home is also nothing but a pile of ruins. While inspecting the ruins, Nicky is haunted by a dark shadow-like creature ("The Thing"), which is implied to be a manifestation of fear itself, and he returns to his home where he finds an old picture of himself as a child before the phone starts to ring. After answering the phone, Nicky sees the shadow entity again. Believing he is hallucinating, he falls asleep as an act of self-therapy. He is awoken by a child's scream and discovers Mr. Peterson's house is back, and more surreal than before, due to his trauma. Nicky navigates the house and has surreal experiences, such as learning to double jump by overcoming his fear of the dark, or overcoming his school fears. Eventually, he enters the basement, now older and more surreal, with exaggerated architecture, with a run-in by The Thing, at the end of the basement is a parallel to Act 1, with Theodore attempting to chase Nicky through the basement.
Entering the room at the end of the basement, Nicky is face to face with a cardboard representation of Theodore's son, Aaron and a giant version of Theodore himself.
Nicky's task in this Act is to knock Theodore to his knees, and get into the giant house on his back.
After doing so, he must protect a younger version of himself from The Thing. Each time The Thing attacks and Nicky protects his younger self, Nicky grows larger until he can fight The Thing. After The Thing is defeated, Nicky sees Mr. Peterson in a small two-room house.
When he spots Nicky he runs in desperation towards the window as if to ask for help, but then sighs and turns away filled with sadness. In the other room is a much smaller Thing. Mr. Peterson has boarded the door up on his side and placed a chair against it, signifying that while Nicky faced his fears, and overcame them Mr. Peterson never overcame his fear, instead choosing to lock them away. The Thing is seen standing right by the door on the other side. Behind him is another door with an exit sign above it.
Throughout the game there are multiple nightmare sequences, 2 in Act 1 and 2, and 1 in Act 3 just after entering the Neighbor's house in Act Finale.
These sequences depict major events in the Hello Neighbor timeline, with Act 1's showcasing the Neighbors' wife being injured in a car crash, and subsequently dying in the hospital, and with Act 2's showcasing the Neighbor's daughter, Mya, falling to her death at the hands of her brother, and subsequently burying her body, before locking his son, Aaron, up in the basement, all of these topics are further explained in the books, and the prequel game, Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek.
Act 3's Nightmare sequence showcases Theodore putting up missing posters for his children, upon locking Aaron up in the basement.
The house extensions in Act 2 and 3 are part of these Nightmare's influenced by Nicky's trauma, in Act 2 the house is the same as it was in Act 1, being morphed by the distorted memories of a now-adult Nicky remembering his past.
While Act 3 is implied to be a dream, Nikita Kolesnikov insists that it is not, and that "that would be lazy of them", implying that the events of Act 3 are real to some extent.
Russian studio Dynamic Pixels started development of Hello Neighbor in 2014. The game was released as an alpha build on Dynamic Pixels' website in 2015. It was later approved for sale as an early access game by the Steam Greenlight program and a Kickstarter campaign was launched to fund further development. The studio later signed a deal with tinyBuild to fund and publish the project.[9] The Pre-Alpha version of the game was released on September 29, 2016.[10] [11] [12] The Alpha 1 version of Hello Neighbor was released on October 26, 2016.[13] [14] [15] Alpha 2 was released on November 22, 2016. Alpha 3 was released on December 22, 2016. Alpha 4 was released on May 4, 2017.
The game went into the beta phase on July 25, 2017.[16] [17] For Halloween 2017, a promotional mod was released including multiple elements from the indie game Bendy and the Ink Machine. The mod includes a black and yellow tint, ink, music from the game and multiple appearances of Bendy.[18] The game was originally set for a full release on August 29, 2017,[19] but was delayed until December 8, 2017.[20] [21]
The game was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One on December 8, 2017. A timed Microsoft exclusive, Hello Neighbor was later ported to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and mobile devices.[22] The mobile versions of the game are only supported on a limited number of devices and come with a free trial that allows players to play through Act 1, with the option to unlock the remaining two Acts and the Finale with an in-game purchase.[23]
In 2019, development was started for a standalone sequel, Hello Neighbor 2.
In July 2020, tinyBuild acquired the development team from Dynamic Pixels to establish a new studio by the name of Eerie Guest Studios and invested into the Hello Neighbor series.[24]
Hello Bendy was a Halloween version of Beta 3 released on 27 October 2017, with several elements of Bendy and the Ink Machine. This game mode includes a yellow-and-black background, music of the game and a multitude of Bendy appearances.
Hello Guest is a spin-off of Hello Neighbor made by tinyBuild. The game takes place in the mysterious Golden Apple Amusement Park, and the game revolves around playing as Quentin or Beatrix, two security guards at the Park. Solving puzzles and outsmarting the guest, a learning AI similar to the neighbor from the first game, all while attempting to restart the roller coaster. This game was dropped onto mobile devices, but was deleted to "ensure standards" across the franchise. Despite this, the game is still available for download on Xbox and PC as a "Hello Neighbor 2 Pre-Alpha" and the Guest character continued to be an antagonist of several pieces of media in the franchise.
A prequel to Hello Neighbor, titled Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek, was announced during PAX West in August 2018, and released on December 7, 2018, on the same platforms as the original game, including non-Microsoft systems.[25] Set several years before the events of the original game, Hide & Seek deals with the events in Mr. Peterson's life that caused him to become a recluse.[26] The gameplay is similar to that of Hello Neighbor, but instead of Nicky, the player controls Mr. Peterson's daughter Mya as she plays hide-and-seek with her brother, Aaron (who takes the place of the neighbor), in various fictitious scenarios. The story is told through cutscenes in-between levels, which reveal that the children's mother dies in a car crash sometime during the events of the game. In his grief, Aaron later pushes Mya off the roof of the house, resulting in her accidental death.
Secret Neighbor, a multiplayer spin-off of Hello Neighbor, was announced on June 10, 2018, and released on October 24, 2019, for Xbox and PC.[27] Set between the first two acts of Hello Neighbor, it follows Nicky's friends (dubbed the "Rescue Squad") as they try to rescue him from Mr. Peterson's house. The children are represented by different classes, each with their unique skillsets and abilities, and must collect keys required to unlock the door to the house's basement. However, one of the children is Mr. Peterson in disguise, and also has various class-based abilities at his disposal that can be used to confuse, trick, capture, or otherwise prevent the children from achieving their goal.
The game also has a Level Editor exclusive to the Steam version, several game modes to play, and a cosmetic shop.
Hello Engineer, a multiplayer machinery-building construction game set in the Hello Neighbor universe, was announced on October 20, 2020. A gameplay reveal trailer was released four days later. In Hello Engineer, the Rescue Squad explore an open world based on the abandoned Golden Apple Amusement Park and must collect scrap to build various machines while avoiding Mr. Peterson's attempts to catch them. The game was released for the cloud gaming service Google Stadia on October 26, 2021,[28] and was fully released on August 17th, 2023 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft Windows via the Steam marketplace.
Hello Neighbor Nicky's Diaries (also known as just "Hello Neighbor: Diaries" in promotional material) is a mobile spin-off to the first Hello Neighbor, was released in 11 regions on June 22, 2022, as a test launch. The game was released globally on December 6, 2023. It was originally released as Nicky's Diaries on the mobile port of the first game. Set in the book timeline, young Nicky Roth must piece together the mysteries from his childhood.
This book recaps the events of the first Hello Neighbor book, Missing Pieces, and was intended to get content updates to recap the other 2 books in the Nicky Trilogy, however it is unknown if this will happen, as DeMagic has since been shuttered.[29]
A new Hello Neighbor game initially titled Hello Guest was later revealed to be the Pre-Alpha of Hello Neighbor 2 and on July 23, 2020, it was announced as the official sequel to the original game. On this same day, Alpha 1 was also released, with Alpha 1.5 releasing on October 26, 2020.[30] The sequel was announced to be available for Microsoft Windows and Xbox Series X/S. On December 10, 2021, it was announced that a closed Beta would be released on April 7, 2022, which would only be available to those who pre-ordered the game. On February 10, 2022, it was announced that Hello Neighbor 2 would also release on PlayStation 4 and 5. tinyBuild announced that the full game was expected to release on December 6, 2022, which it did.[31]
The game follows Quentin, a reporter who had arrived to Raven Brooks to write about the story of the disappearance of Aaron and Mya, however he would soon learn that Mr. Peterson has taken refuge in the closed museum, to which he must sneak inside the homes of the other residences of Raven Brooks in search for keys in order to enter it. As Quentin progresses, he would eventually learn about the deep secrets about the town and avoid a strange figure known as "The Guest".
A VR title in the Hello Neighbor franchise titled Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue was announced on November 3, 2022. The game is made by Steel Wool Studios in collaboration with tinyBuild. The game was released on the PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest 2, and PCVR Headsets via the Steam Storefront on May 25, 2023, with a PlayStation VR version releasing on November 24, 2023.
The player once again plays as the Rescue Squad, who are breaking into the creepy Neighbor's house, to try to rescue their missing friend, uncovering dark secrets about the Neighbor and his past along the way.
Raven Brooks Online is an upcoming game in the Hello Neighbor universe. It is a multiplayer game in which the player is an intruder attempting to steal loot from the protectors of the house. Playtesting for the game was initially open to the public on February 16, 2024 and concluded on February 19, 2024.
Nikita Kolesnikov, the game's creator, says that the game is heavily based on the theme of moving on, with a lot of the player elements being based off Persona 5.
An animated series made for television based on Hello Neighbor was announced on 17 April 2020, with a pilot episode releasing on YouTube the same day for YouTube members, with the extended cut releasing for everyone in June of the same year.[32] [33] The pilot was watched by more than 11 million viewers within the first week, which to tinyBuild's CEO Alex Nichiporchik, "demonstrated the strength of Hello Neighbor as a franchise".[34] A teaser was released on tinyBuild's YouTube channel on 1 December 2022, as well as the title for the show, Hello Neighbor: Welcome to Raven Brooks. The first episode of the series was released on 11 December 2022, produced by Man of Action, with the rest of the show's episodes being released in the last quarter of 2023.
Season 2 is set to premiere sometime in 2024, there is a total of 3 seasons announced for the series, spanning 6 episodes a season for a combined total of 18 episodes.
The series follows Trinity Bales, a new kid who just moved to Raven Brooks into the house across the street from Mr. Peterson's residence. She meets the school's Inventors Club (Enzo, Ivan and Nicky), as Nicky introduces Trinity to the rumors behind Mr. Peterson, as they plan to sneak inside his property to figure out what he is hiding. Along the way the kids soon discover a major conspiracy within the town relating to golden coins causing accidents, a strange reliance on crows, and a crow-person watching their every step.
Review aggregator website Metacritic reports "generally unfavorable reviews" for Hello Neighbor on all platforms. Criticism was directed towards the gameplay, control scheme and technical performance, though it was praised for its story aspects and art style.