When the fog rolls in and the radio crackles with whispers from beyond, you know you’ve entered the abyssal world of Static Dread: The Lighthouse. This in-depth descent into SolarSuit.Games’ latest psychological horror sim places you in the boots of a lone keeper, tasked with guiding ships through cursed waters while eldritch forces claw at your sanity. Inspired by Lovecraftian dread and the moral tension of Papers, Please, the game’s haunting loop of radio transmissions, ritualistic villagers, and vanishing crews creates a uniquely immersive descent into madness.

Static Dread: The Lighthouse Review Pros

• Decent graphics. 
• 2.81GB download size. 
• Platinum trophy. 
• Display settings – graphics quality preset, camera shake, vignette, film grain, and chromatic aberration. 
• Audio volume sliders for music and sound volume. 
• Controller settings – Invert Y and sensitivity slider. 
• A beautiful 3D game world and has this awesome 2D effect on characters that pop in this world. 
• On-screen button prompts. 
• Choice-based adventure gameplay. 
• Tutorial pop-ups as you play, and you can find notes and entries to help with the general flow of the game. 
• Your goal is to guide and help ships make it to their destinations, but you have to check if they are who they say they are and check destinations to make sure they’re legit. 
• Mark a map to guide ships. It’s an easy click to mark and join dots to make a path system. Man, I made that sound way more complicated than it is. 
• The art style really stands out and works well for the world they have created. 
• On the radio, you can manually turn the nob to find signals or use the d-pad to scan for signals automatically, with a green light showing for a signal. 
• As you progress, you will be given dedicated signal frequencies to contact your family. 
• You can do things like rearrange the hanging pictures, randomly, but I am thorough. 
• The game is best played with headphones, as the sound is just as important as the text. 
• Full 360 camera control on the right stick. 
• You get these cool flyovers and aerial shots of the lighthouse. 
• The management is not just the radio; you have to maintain the cabin and turn the lighthouse on and off, you can also do little tasks and answer the door and speak with locals. 
• Multiple-choice encounters are a huge part of the game, and they are the most popular method of interaction. 
• Earn and drink to maintain your energy as this affects what you can and cannot do aswel as how fast you can do it, energy drains slower at night. 
• Collectable journals to learn about what happened to the first keeper. 
• You get notifications of when the radio is going or someone is at the door, whether it be a noise or a text pop-up. 
• Many colourful characters to meet and be afraid of. 
• Finding random radio frequencies is kinda cool and creepy at the same time because you’re never sure what you are listening to. 
• I found the game to be oozing in atmosphere and using sound so well that headphones improved my experience tenfold. 
• The stories and questioning you can do with captains is very engrossing, hearing of the open waters and events surrounding them is just great to experience. 
• You can pause the game at any time. 
• Despite the open nature of it but make no mistake, it’s a creepy game, it has you constantly on edge from the door knocking to the radio noise to weather changing and the lights turning on and off. 
• You can climb up to the lighthouse light and look out to see the island, and at times, you will have to repair or restart the light. 
• It’s a simple thing, but looking out the window is just as entertaining as you can see lights and movement in real time, just watch the open waters, etc. 
• There are pieces of paper around to give tutorial-like instructions. 
• You will soon realise that you are indeed not alone, and something mysterious happened with the previous keeper, an unknown voice starts setting you off with paranoia, so that’s always fun. 
• You come to rely on the power box a lot, as it shows green for operational and nothing for broken or switched off. You need to keep them green as much as possible. 
• It’s a small play area, but the way in which it opens up and keeps you guessing is quite remarkable. 
• Handy run button to keep things moving. 
• Once I got into the game, it hooked and grabbed me, and I looked forward to every session. 
• When you enter a seperate room, it is presented as if you are standing in the doorway, then you just highlight and select elements. 
• Little mini-game-style sequences play out over the course of the game. 
• I found this version to run very well, and for me, it ran better than it did on my PC. 

Static Dread: The Lighthouse Review Cons

• You cannot remap the controls. 
• No real accessibility options like text size, dyslexia font, and Colourblind, etc. 
• Slow starter, as you have a lot to take in in quite a short time, honestly. 
• I found the options for interacting with people were not always in line with what I wanted to do or the type of keeper I wanted to be, and it did get frustrating. 
• Be prepared to do a lot of reading, as there is not a lot of voice. 
• Constantly running up and down for the light house isn’t always fun and can get a bit much. 
• You never know when it was last saved, and there is no manual save. 
• Had a few hiccups early on where my game didn’t seem to save properly, so I played the opening part a fair few times. 
• This is just to let you know, but Static Dread: The Lighthouse does not have cross-save between platforms. 

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Static Dread: The Lighthouse

Official Website:

Developer: SolarSuit.games

Publisher: Polden Publishing

Store Link:

PlayStation