Happy's Humble Burger Farm Xbox Series X Review

Happy's Humble Burger Farm takes inspiration from many indie horror titles such as Five Nights at Freddy's and Amnesia to create an easily disturbing adventure. Full of frights and chills Happy's Humble Burger Farm showers the player with unnerving situations cloaked in a layer of comfort. There are some technical issues that need resolving but uncovering the secrets of this disturbing place offers all the insightful joys fans of indie horrors love. Happy's Humble Burger Farm is an indie horror gem with all the unnerving aspects fans love from these projects.

Happy's Humble Burger Farm starts a fast-food worker starting his first job at Happy's Humble Burger Farm. Right off the start things seems off, people look like drones, the city is large but empty, and everything just seems strange. Things escalate as you find camouflaged humans shutting off your fast-food equipment, what appears to be glitched out men, and even more unsettling things. You'll quickly uncover that this entire area is not what it seems and you've been trapped inside hell itself as you attempt to escape by any means.

You'll need money and to get this you can sell stuff at the local pawn shop but that only goes so far. A bulk of your income will come from your job at Happy's Humble Burger Farm fulfilling orders and keeping orders. This is because random "incidents" will happen that result in equipment shutting off and random things that must be completed. The more you commit to your job the more responsibilities will be added such as more options for food, optional tasks, and sometimes horrifying attacks. Everything is timed and if you do a good job you're rewarded with more money, make too many mistakes and a friendly hostile reminder will appear that will show you why you shouldn't slack off.

The developers did do a good job with the food preparation system. As someone who played an earlier version of the game, they took the feedback and made it much easier to craft the burgers you'll need to survive. Trust me, learning what makes these sandwiches is important to your survival.

Your primary goal is to escape and that means investigating oddities around the town. Sometimes things will explode and other times NPCs will guide you in the right direction. The action isn't given outright as some progression barriers are locked by finding where the key item goes. You'll craft things like keycode hackers and bombs to unlock new areas hidden throughout the town. This is how you progress and find a way out.

The paramount details surrounding the narrative are told through optional collectables. These disks provide insight into the world, the reason behind why this is happening, and the people who were in similar situations as you. The issue is that in 1 section of the map, where you're inside a vent, the collectable refuses to be picked up due to an audio issue where you cannot pick up a collectable if the game believes audio is being played. It'll likely be resolved later but this was vexing since this locked away some details. It would've been helpful to have a counter as well to make sure you got everything.

You'll be crafting and the materials needed are located in the environment or by purchasing them through vending machines. You can only pick up 4 objects at a time but eventually gain access to an optional backpack to store items. For some reason, you cannot access the backpack if you're holding an object so you'll need to drop everything. Also, you can only take out 1 item at a time. I ran into a glitch that made items invisible but this was only during 1 of my 2 playthroughs so it could've been just a 1-time technical issue.

The protagonist is not immortal and you have an energy and health meter. Energy constantly depletes but not at a high rate, requiring you to either eat, shower, or sleep to recover so you can choose whatever is convenient. Coffee offers surges in energy that increase your speed if you need that boost.

There are deadly enemies in this world and the game does a great job of highlighting the threat. Everything has that Five Nights at Freddy's feel where things you wouldn't normally be afraid of becoming the stuff of nightmares. The sound design in particular does an exceptional job of creating dread and tension. The developers definitely nailed the atmosphere and tone as you find out more secrets of this horrible place.

Visually the game is hit or miss depending on your taste. It works for the game's narrative to have these almost blocky visuals and it makes sense towards by the end why things look this way. It can be difficult to read some of the notes in certain areas. For example, 1 note after a boss fight cannot be interacted with to get a good look and another note in the same room is blocked by seaweed. 1 crafting recipe is placed oddly so crouching and standing doesn't give you a good look at it and rarely the text is so blurry it's hard to read. 

Happy's Humble Burger Farm successfully creates that unnerving tension and disturbing atmosphere horror games love. The mystery of the town and the deadly creatures within is a thrill to uncover. There are some technical issues that need fixing but it's nothing compared to the horrors found from GTA Definitive Edition or Battlefield 2042. Happy's Humble Burger Farm is one horror game fans won't want to miss and it'll make you a better fast-food worker as well.
 

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed