Dead Exhale Review

A monster that listens, when it feels like it

Dead Exhale is a first-person survival horror game developed and self-published by ODale Studios, a solo developer previously behind indie titles Mother Hub and Habilis. Set inside a mysterious ancient alien temple, the game strands players among hidden dangers and cryptic puzzles, blending exploration, stealth, and problem-solving into a premise built around one central hook: a monster that hunts by listening through the player's real-world microphone, turning talking, gasping, or even streaming commentary into genuine in-game risk. Following a transparent public development arc -- an announcement in May 2025, a playtest that July, and a free demo running from late August through launch -- the game released on 27 October 2025 at a budget NZ$4.49. Its review sample, a small 9 reviews at the time of writing, lands at Mixed, split almost evenly between reviewers charmed by the concept and reviewers who feel the execution falls well short of the pitch.

The strongest praise in the sample focuses squarely on the game's identity and ambition rather than its moment-to-moment mechanics. One lengthy, largely positive review calls the microphone-detection system a mechanic that creates "a level of immersion rarely seen in indie horror projects," praising how the alien-temple setting -- with its "strange architecture" and "hidden chambers" -- sustains a consistent sense of unease across its runtime, awarding the game 6 out of 10 overall. Another reviewer, admittedly not a horror fan, says they "LOVED the design of everything, especially the holo planets around the main area," and recommends the game to horror newcomers specifically as a gentle entry point into the genre. Even several clearly negative reviews concede real merit in the environmental design: one reviewer who ultimately can't recommend the game still calls the locations "generally well-designed," citing solid texture work and obstacle placement despite finding them monotonous overall.

That goodwill collapses, though, once reviewers describe actually testing the signature mechanic. The complaint is specific and recurs independently across multiple reviews: one player states flatly that they "played through with both mic on and mic off and i didn't notice any difference," while another reports that as long as you crawl, stay silent, and keep your flashlight off, the monster "almost will never find you" regardless of ambient noise. A third reviewer goes further, describing the entire premise as feeling like a bait-and-switch: "the game simply isn't scary... No matter how much the author praised the artificial intelligence of his creation, it's no different from hundreds and thousands of other monsters found in similar 'crafts' on Steam." Compounding this, one reviewer reports a specific bug where the monster becomes intermittently invisible partway through, turning what should be a tense stealth encounter into what they call "more of a crap shoot" -- since there's no way to judge whether a dark hallway is genuinely empty or hiding an unseen threat.

The puzzle design draws a similarly split, though more one-sidedly negative, reception. One reviewer who enjoyed the game overall still notes the tutorial doesn't adequately explain the mechanics, though they maintain the puzzles become "pretty self explanatory" after the first one clicks. Several other reviewers disagree sharply: one states the game "doesn't help you understand how the planet puzzles work in any way whatsoever," describing solving the first puzzle "by literally pressing randomly" before getting permanently stuck on the second, while another simply calls the puzzles "broken." A separate, structural complaint targets the game's leveling and upgrade systems, which multiple reviewers describe as functionally pointless -- one writes the leveling system "feels completely useless," while a longtime fan of the developer's earlier work notes they stopped engaging with upgrades entirely after a couple of playthroughs, having found no meaningful benefit to them.

Length and polish round out the sample's most consistent frustrations. A reviewer who explicitly says they've "loved Seth's other games" -- referencing the developer's prior titles Mother Hub and Habilis -- still can't recommend Dead Exhale at full price, writing plainly that the game "shouldve had more time to cook" given how short it is once players learn its sequences, and noting they found and exploited sequence-breaking bugs including activating switches through walls and effectively sprinting through the entire game, even on its hardest "Hell mode" difficulty. Other reviewers echo the short-runtime concern even at the low NZ$4.49 price point, with more than one saying they wouldn't recommend the purchase "even for the $3 it costs to buy" given how little content and tension actually materialises across a full playthrough.

Notably, the sample doesn't read as reflexively hostile toward the developer -- several critical reviewers go out of their way to soften their verdict with encouragement, a pattern that says as much about goodwill toward the project as it does about its current state. One writes that "the inexperiance of the dev is very visible" but frames the game as "promising" and says they "cant wait to see what they do next." Another, despite calling the puzzles "trash" and the monster unoriginal, still frames the criticism around unmet expectations rather than a wholesale dismissal of the concept. Even the fan disappointed by the game's short length and lack of polish says they're "still looking forward to Face Interrogation," referencing the developer's next announced project, and hopes ODale Studios "continues building upon his universe as well as his game-dev skills." That distinction matters for anyone weighing whether to buy in now versus wait: this reads less like a fundamentally broken idea and more like a promising concept that needed additional development time the solo developer didn't have before committing to an October release date.

Verdict

Dead Exhale has a genuinely clever, well-marketed hook -- a monster that listens through your microphone -- wrapped around an intriguing alien-temple setting that draws real, if qualified, praise even from critical reviewers. But its Mixed review sample is remarkably consistent in reporting that the core mechanic barely functions as advertised, that puzzles swing wildly between trivial and incomprehensible, and that the whole experience is over too quickly to earn back the goodwill its premise generates. There's a promising developer here, by multiple reviewers' own admission -- just not, yet, a finished game that lives up to its own pitch.