Brno Transit Review
Posted by Samuel on 21-10-2026
The majority of horror games these days seem to use a lot of similar inspirations or follow similar patterns. Certain trends have taken over the genre and so often the textures of these games blend together like they're trying to strike the same gold that some big titles managed. This works sometimes from a market standpoint but for anyone who actually likes games and is over the age of 8 this becomes apparent after playing a couple of them. It's always refreshing to see a new take on something like horror, and it's always doubly refreshing when you get to play one that doesn't just try to scare you, but actually do something with your time.
A small group of Carnyx Folk played Brno Transit while on holiday, and I thought it was cool and unique enough to write about. This review has been in limbo for a while, but since it's October what better time to release it!
There are some interesting things to be taken from this game and I think it's one of the ones worth remembering. It provokes some good talking points for you to use with your fellow game design nerd friends.
Brno Transit is a narrative driven atmospheric horror game, made available on Steam for £7.99 (or $8.99) at time of writing. The game was made by an interesting character known as Spytihněv, a Czech solo dev. Spytihněv has been developing for a while - since 1996 according to his hrot fandom page, which is pretty funny and worth a read if you're interested in more info on the guy. His other projects include Legie (2007) and Hrot (2023), which is similar to games like Dusk (2018) and was received very positively and achieved cult success. Many of his games have a distinct style which is quite bleak with a grey, darker colour pallet and textures that send me back in time to things like Theif and Deus Ex. I haven't played anything else by him yet, but Brno is a short and sweet game that is a great combination of unnerving and humorous driven mostly through ambience and environment. If the others are like this I think his stuff is worth a check out, so you might see more related to this dev in the future on here.
I'm going to break this down into some sections to describe the game and talk about what I think works well and what could have been better as an exercise of looking at a cool piece of art. I'll break it down into visuals, audio, gameplay and narrative. It's entirely possible I missed some stuff, and that may sometimes be intentional because there's a lot to spoil here and I think it's worth playing the game for yourself rather than hearing second hand how something was cool.
Gameplay
Let's start with the gameplay. It's quite simplistic. There are only really 2 mechanics in the game: interacting with things and driving the train. You are provided with a train map which is useful for finding the correct route which is always accessible. The interactive elements of the game are really just there to pull the narrative forwards by getting you to grab the next thing or a collectible hidden in the world, so there isn't much to be said there.
The trains have a little more going on, but are still mechanically simple. You have a lever you can pull to go forwards or backwards, and that's basically it. The main loop consists of trying to get to the next station in time. You have a little distance meter and a countdown, and that's basically all you need. It feels quite fun to drive the train and I honestly could have just done this for a while on its own. I appreciate that the dev made it so you could look away from the stick and move around while driving so you can still engage with things going on in the cabin. I think without that the driving could have quickly become annoying for people like me who can't stay still and do one thing in a game. Though mechanically simple it's well designed. I could see some pretty interesting evolutions of it such as varying station mechanics to keep it interesting. I think it's another example that I see quite often of simple fun mechanics having a lot of potential and making good bases for games...
There will usually be a character with you while you're driving which adds a little bit of variety to each day on the job, but they never really interfere that much with the task and function mostly as interesting narrative content. They are an interesting variation to the set up but I could see this being expanded more to create more varied content and levels that could extend the lifespan of the mechanic. There is evidence that this is possible in the game, where a character affects the way you interact with the driving, but we aren't in spoilers yet so I'll say no more.
There's a great balance between space and action in all aspects of this game. It causes a kind of constant tension as you never know when something's suddenly going to start or stop. It struck me while writing that that's quite a good way of improving the impact of jump scares while maintaining a sort of unease in the moments between them which I feel a lot of games fail at. Horror games often use a feeling of rising to a climax and then a period of come down, but this is very different than that. A similarly short and sweet game using this exact other approach is 5 Nights at Freddie's (the mention will make some fellow Carnyx members happy I'm sure). There, as the night goes on, things become more intense until suddenly either there is a shocking moment as you die, or there is a deflation of the tension as you win. That was probably the right choice of pacing there. Brno is totally different in every way, and so doesn't do this. There is no constant threat that looms, it's an ambient and psychological story. I think if it tried to mimic this typical pacing in effort it would have totally failed. It's doubly effective because it's underutilized in the rest of the industry. Sometimes this is used to provoke a bit of a scare, like that feeling in a nightmare where it turns from a normal dream suddenly into something threatening. Across the whole game it is more used to keep the perpetual sense of unease.
Most stuff in the game outside the main story and gameplay could be described as completionist focused and not mechanically meaningful. That's fine but there isn't much more than what I have said so far. This is a theme throughout my assessment of Brno Transit. Certain parts are very locked in and well designed, but its very empty feeling. It's a bit like eating a cake with tasty icing but not much flavour itself. This could be a deliberate choice because spaciousness and emptiness feel in line with lots of aspects of the game. The problem for me is that there are pieces of the game which are really disappointing because of how shallow they feel. Shallow is how I would generally describe the gameplay and the world. I'll talk about this more in spoiler territory.
Visuals
Brno Transit maintains a similar colour theme as Spytihněv 's previous games. The visuals in this game made me reminisce about playing Paratropic (2018). It's got peculiar (albeit not constantly shifting) faces on the NPCs that are a little too real which coupled with the stance of these dudes which makes them funny and also a little off putting to look at for too long. The visuals are nostalgic but remain unique as a consequence of small changes to things like those NPC faces and stances and behaviour on the trains.
Sometimes you are taken off-guard by something striking in the environment which makes the world feel alive and independant. The best part of this game is the trains, and the experience of riding them and watching them go by feels so real. The way the environment is designed gives the trains a feeling of speed and danger which you get just by watching them. Having one wiz past you narrowly is a very cool feeling which made me feel similar to the first time I went to a subway and thought “holy fuck that could have killed me” as a train shot past. Equally, just riding it is a very realistic feeling of being on a train. I always get this feeling on them that it's a bit mundane, but get kind of self conscious when people look at me. A bit like occasionally being snapped back into the moment from a boredom brought about stupor when I notice someone stare at me for a second. This game sorta nails that feeling with the behaviour of the NPCs and I love that. I have a soft spot for public transport in games (I couldn't explain why really) and this might be one of my favourite versions of it because of how much of a sense of speed you get, which is where a lot of games fail.
Audio
I'm quite favourable to the audio in this game, with a couple of caveats.
In my first playthrough I only thought it was serviceable with some highlight moments, I didn't think of much to say about it. On my second I decided that it was really awesomely executed, in certain spots. The difference here was the first time I played it was on some not so good speakers, but my replay used high quality headphones. I did some tests and found there is a lot of depth and layering to the way the audio is constructed on top of each other that makes a powerful environment, but that it only comes through in the right conditions. Now I really love it and think it's excellent, in most spots, when it works.
It's quite a quiet game, which feels like the right choice. It kind of made absent audio on the worse speakers not feel so bad too because when it was quiet, even if it wasn't meant to be, it still felt like a conscious decision. There isn't a lot of music in this game which I think is perfectly fine. That creates a stronger impression when there is audio and particularly when there is music. Lots of games overuse audio in my opinion which can lead to what would otherwise have been gripping moments being underwhelming as the emotion of the audio is blocked out through audio blindness. Horror games (especially psychological ones) benefit a lot from this toned down atmosphere. It often seems to be a good choice to be selective with the audio you use unless you have someone very skilled at that kind of thing to make it balanced correctly. Sometimes less is more.
Brno Transit contains a lot of noises that I can remember due to the use of space that in most other games would have gone unregistered. Without doing spoilers just yet, there is a stomach gurgling sound effect that because of how long you have been in silence before makes you feel disgusted. I could easily see this being smoothed over by adding a music track that encourages the player to feel rushed in that moment, but what is there I think puts enough pressure on the player and indicates a sense of urgency.
The main problem is that it really isn't as impactful at all on cheaper speakers like a TV or monitor's built in ones and I'm not sure to what extent this is fixable. A lot of the quality in this particular audio comes from complexity in the bass end of the audio which, as we all know, cheaper speakers aren't always so good with. This happens with things like the rumbling of an actual train in the distance that changes with where you are (which was cool as hell when I noticed it). There are certain things that I just didn't notice on these cheap speakers as well. The strongest example of this was a ceiling fan. In my second playthrough I thought it was a really cool ambient sound that totally changed the vibe of one of the areas, but my first time round I didn't even realize it was there. It just didn't come through. Some of the audio is of a lower quality too and that can be a little odd when some is so good. They stand out because it feels a little disconnected from the environment in ways the others don't, but this is quite nitpicky especially for a solo project. Plus, the criticism is really that I like some audio a lot and the rest is fine. I wouldn't give those pieces a second thought if I didn't like some parts so much.
Narrative
This section will contain some spoilers, so it might be a good idea to skip it if you're interested in playing this for yourself.
The game starts with you going to your first day as a train driver in Brno's subway system. You have to go through the bureaucratic process of signing up. This is a pretty slow section which does a good job of feeling like something straight out of a Kafka novel. You purchase a ticket for the train. You go to desks to get the right permissions to sign up and be told where to work. You perform mundane tasks for your new boss.
Quickly things start to go awry. Oddities begin to appear. You go for lunch and eat a bad hotdog ("sausages" are a theme of this game). You wake up having caused a huge mess, and then we return to something like a theme from Kafka as no-one really talks about it except to tell you to clean it up. It's just time to do your job again.
The story blends and combines mundanity with absurdity like this quite often in an elegant way. It's funny but never strays too much from the central idea that you are an employee and there are rules you must follow and work politics at play.
Throughout the story there are moments of tension as you go about your work day. This literally feels like how some jobs are. You feel like you're asked to do something stupid and have to make sure to please a boss. It's unnerving and uncomfortable but never quite gets to the point most people would label as 'scary'. The discomfort is internal and unique to the player and I can imagine different people having wildly different internal experiences with it. It is psychological in the truest sense there in that some things that bother you may be because of a particularity of you yourself. Some feel squeamish and uncomfortable at the blood bag section and some may find it funny, but I can tell you that I was definitely uncomfortable (although I also thought it was funny). It's kind of like a hodgepodge of concerns mixed into a game that are then thrown together to see what makes you personally feel discomfort or find funny. I think this is quite a fun way of designing a game. It kind of shows how closely related disgust, fear and humour are.
This all goes well until the end. The story finishes abruptly and feels kind of rushed. I'm not sure what happened here. Whether the dev had just had enough (understandable) or had made all the content they wanted and didn't really want to make it go on too long (also understandable). It only lasts about an hour and kind of feels a little bit jarring. It doesn't feel unplanned to be clear. I do think that it delivers on the narrative as a conclusion and this isn't out of character for the story which is snappy as it goes between sections. It's just a bit disappointing because it feels like it shouldn't really end there and is just a lot weaker than the rest of the game, which I genuinely enjoyed and thought was very creative.
There's a free play mode after you beat the story which lets you explore the map. The linearity of the story doesn't mean that you can't explore but it does give you a strong direction without much incentive to go off the rails (haha). Free play indicates that there is more to see and do. Sadly I couldn't find any evidence of this being the case when I went exploring.
Linear stories aren't bad, and neither is keeping things clustered around it. The primary issue I have here is that it isn't focused enough on the existing content. I got a bit distracted by my exploring but the exploration didn't ever feel like it paid off. I think in cases like this it's generally better to restrict players rather than let them waste time. It reduces the disappointment from "why did I waste my time with that" to "oh its a shame I can't do that", which is a little bit of a better feeling.
What is there is quite a pleasant and amusing story that won't take too long to get through. It for sure doesn't overstay its welcome, for better or worse.
Conclusion
Really good story, creative vision, fun and very easy mechanics. On the other hand, it's too shallow in every aspect and possibly too short (definitely not too long). It costs too much at full price for what you get. At £8 I felt kind of unhappy for the content received. It isn't at that level of content given that it's shorter than a movie, and doesn't give you anything interesting to do outside of the main story. If you can get it on sale and just want something super short to play for a bit then I highly recommend, but I wouldn't buy it for the full price. It's also not a very mechanically deep or difficult game, so if you want something else that gives a feeling of challenge this definitely isn't it. It's probably a mistake to call it "horror" although I have been throughout this because it isn't "scary". It's uncomfortable and weird. And I like that. If you enjoy narrative games or psychological ones, this one hits both those marks very well.
All in all - a solid little indie game that I appreciate and the thing deserves some love, just not a good pickup at the full price imo.
