Recently, I covered the Early Access release of Hide The Corpse and had an absolute blast with it. There were some elements that weren’t quite as polished as they could be, and the rating system was both unclear and unforgiving, but the three available stages were so much fun that I was confident  that the final game was going to be something special.

So now that the full release is finally here, was I right? Does it live up to my expectations, or is it dead on arrival?

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NOTHING TO SEE HERE, OFFICER
The premise of Hide the Corpse is as simple as the name implies. The cops have been phoned after you have (presumably) killed poor Gus. With four minutes on the clock until their arrival, the race is on to hide his body successfully enough to get away with murder. Unlike the previous version, the police seem to be slightly more on the ball this time, so you need to make sure that you have him properly covered or you’ll soon find yourself seeing the inside of a prison cell!

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After playing through the revamped tutorial that introduces you to the basics of the game, as well hiding  evidence and wiping down fingerprints, you’ll be thrown into the main lobby where you can access the six main stages. You’ll start off in a house – presumably belonging to Gus – but you’ll soon be hiding corpses in slightly more creative situations: there’s museums, garages, and even the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism: space [high five to all the Tim Curry fans out there – Ed].

Whilst each stage can theoretically be beaten in four minutes, it’s not quite as easy as it seems. There are six potential hiding spots that can be uncovered, with some more devious than others. You may be able to easily dump Gus under a car for an easy win, but storing him in his secret safe will require you to manoeuvre his body in different ways to activate the security system. If you manage to uncover four of the six locations, you’ll then be allowed to proceed to the next stage; it’s worth playing around with different hiding spots to see which ones you think are more achievable, as I often found that it was better to leave tougher ones until later after I refined my corpse disposal skills a little!

Corpse disposal provides the game’s biggest challenge, as Gus’s hefty body will often slip out of your grasp should you try to move too fast, and his limbs have a nasty habit of getting in the way. They did a good job at balancing realism with frustrating physics, and I found that you end up just laughing at failures rather than getting annoyed when things don’t quite go your way.

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Handling his body is so tricky that I’m glad that this final release also takes the opportunity to completely revamp the scoring system. Whilst time taken, evidence found, and fingerprints left unwiped all count towards your overall score, they’ve thankfully ditched the need to keep a constant hold of Gus’ corpse – which is something that only proved detrimental to the early access version. Now, everything is so much more transparent, meaning you’ll be able to see exactly how much you earn for each criteria and how far you are from earning the next rating.

Getting the highest ratings will allow you to unlock different costumes for Gus, and they’re not too difficult to earn either once you know what you’re doing. Time is certainly useful, but you also need to keep an eye out for Gus’ possessions and any fingerprints you left behind. Hiding evidence is pretty straightforward, but to get rid of fingerprints you’ll need to find a sponge in order to give the surfaces a quick clean. It’s very satisfying, and the system is generous enough not to make it feel like a hassle either.

If score chasing isn’t your thing, perhaps the sandbox mode will be. Whilst not completely different to the main game, this mode allows you use anything in the environment to hide his body rather than the designated hiding spots. It’s a nice little tweak to the formula that allows you to test your creativity, whilst also adding a touch more longevity to a game that will probably take you around 10ish hours to complete. But, given how addictive the gameplay loop is, you’ll probably still keep on coming back for just one more session!

VERDICT
Hide the Corpse manages to live up to the quality of the great early access release, providing an addictive and silly experience for an affordable price tag. Don’t write the game off as streamer bait, as it’s genuinely one of the best experiences that I’ve had on the Quest. An absolute must-buy.