Silly Polly Beast is 2025’s most disturbing and darkest horror game. Not only is its story unsettling and told through surrealist symbolism, but the gameplay is also unconventional and bucks the trend for the survival horror genre. Usually, games like this end up in Steam’s AO section or hidden away in some obscure itch.io listing. Still, Anji Games’ devilish flair managed to present its story in such an artistic way that it skirted around ratings and censors.
If you find topics involving minors and very adult crimes difficult, you might want to sit this one out, as both Silly Polly Beast and, by extension, this review will touch on those subjects. Reader beware: this is also an adventure game with cruel bouts of hardcore twin-stick action and cool, nightmarish imagery.
What kind of game is this, and why is it one of the most messed-up stories in video games? Find out in our Silly Polly Beast review!
Silly Polly Beast
Developer: Anji Games
Publisher: Top Hat Studios Inc.
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: October 28, 2025
Price: $19.99
Polly has run away from an orphanage and is trying to find her sister. The problem is that Polly is a mute, and while avoiding the law (as well as a filthy pervert), she finds herself plunging into a hellish abyss. To survive, Polly strikes a deal with a tormented demon, gaining forbidden knowledge and powers to hunt three demons.
As Polly delves deeper, flashbacks reveal her traumatic past, including abuse at the orphanage, and she grapples with embracing her inner “beast” or being consumed by it. The depiction of hell and its demons is interesting because of how they represent aspects of her life. It’s a lot like Silent Hill, where most of the things you see mean something else.
There is no way around this: Silly Polly Beast’s story centers on an orphanage that traffics its troubled children to the power elite, who exploit them in the most horrific ways imaginable. Polly is among many of the victims, and the narrative shows how easily the damaged can become just as rotten and evil as the perpetrators who defiled her.
Silly Polly Beast‘s depiction of hell is like a more lurid, crumbling version of Europe. It’s downcast, rainy, and dirty, combining the worst parts of Slovakia, France, and the United Kingdom. The world feels like a rundown ghetto pieced together from the scraps of a once-great society, with rusted nails jutting out from boarded windows just waiting to catch your elbow.
The exceptional art design draws from several unusual influences. Polly’s design when she gains her horns resembles Power from Chainsaw Man if she were a trashy, goth raggamuffin. Basic enemies look like something out of Killer 7, and bosses are something out of Shadows of the Damned. Compounded with the story about coping with trauma and a corrupt childcare system, Silly Polly Beast‘s closest relative would be Alice: Madness Returns.
At its core, Silly Polly Beast is a blend of an adventure game and a twin-stick action game. The POV is crafted to deliver picturesque shots, switching between 2D gameplay and full-range movement based on the scene. Polly can shoot, dodge roll, throw an explosive bug, and swing a skateboard around like Guts.
Combat is made difficult due to a few factors. Polly has barely any stamina, and while it increases as the story progresses, it’s never enough due to how enemies move absurdly fast. It’s very easy to get swamped and overwhelmed to the point that melee is not feasible. Polly’s attacks feel sluggish, and her stamina drains far too quickly, which is funny considering she can dodge roll endlessly without any cost.
Throughout the duration of the adventure, Polly gains a few weapons that are mapped to the directional buttons for quick access. She has a standard-issue pistol that can easily replenish ammo from burning trash bins, along with a shotgun and a machine gun that rarely get any ammo from defeated foes.
The aiming has a soft auto-targeting that sometimes backfires because Polly is usually up against many foes at once, all climbing over each other to take a swing at her. A lot of the fights will require players to spam the dodge button to get some distance as they whittle down the enemies or chip away at a giant centipede’s health. It’s less of a satisfying back-and-forth with the enemy and more like pure chaotic attrition.
It’s hard to tell if it’s intentional, but Polly constantly facing hopeless odds against the legions of hell might be a metaphor for the trauma she endured at the orphanage of doom. The enemies needed to be slowed down a tad, and Polly’s skateboard needed to push back foes a bit more instead of none at all.
Silly Polly Beast is a challenging game. The fighting is stressful, and Polly is as wimpy as she looks. Yet there is nothing in the game more brutal than the skateboarding mini-game. Mechanically, skateboarding is pretty straightforward. You just shift left or right, hop over obstacles, or duck beneath them. The problem is that a single mistake sends you back to the start, and the entire course gets randomized each time Polly bails.
The skateboarding sequence is so hard that even the game’s developer realized how it went too far. Sadly, instead of allowing a couple of retries or checkpoints, the game gives up and offers the player to skip the sequence entirely, forfeiting any money collected in the minigame. It’s extra painful since you need money to keep up with health items, and the only other way to earn money is from defeated foes.
The best aspects of Silly Polly Beast are its visuals, storytelling, and fun level design that plays with perspective. Surprisingly, the puzzles are easy and amount to hitting a switch or dragging a thing to a place. The combat could use a little finesse, and maybe adding some gritty voice acting to the supporting cast would make this game all it could be.
Silly Polly Beast is a surprising and effective game that stuck with me. It’s almost on par with the likes of Signalis, but a lot less confusing and cryptic. It’s a damn cool game and is one for the freaks.
Silly Polly Beast was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Top Hat Games Inc. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Silly Polly Beast is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
