Cry Of Fear is definitely the best horror game I've played in the last year.

It's not the graphics, it's not the engine that makes the game good, and it's not the dozens of positive reviews it's gotten.

Simon is an insecure, self-destructive, drug-using 19-year-old who has never met his father, has an overprotective mother who doesn't allow him to socialize, has lived with anxiety and depression his whole life, and is constantly self-destructive.

In the midst of all this pain and anxiety, Simon meets a girl named Sophie, the only boy who makes life more bearable for Sophie, the only boy who cares about her at school.

He became attached to this girl who added a bit of color to his dark world, and although he insisted on his love, he was rejected. This event weakened Simon considerably, to the point that he blamed himself for the rejection on his anxiety disorder. In a life so full of pain, including rejection, the only thing that helped him was his nightly walks.

And as usual, during one of his night walks he saw an injured man and tried to help him. He was then crippled when he was hit by a car.

This event, in addition to Simon's physical suffering, created enormous mental trauma. He met a psychiatrist, Doctor Purnell, who was supposed to follow his mental development and help him. Simon was not responding to his medication on his own, refusing psychotherapy and unable to get rid of his negative thoughts, in a way living his own hell in his own world. And Doctor Purnell suggested Cognitive Therapy. According to cognitive therapy, Simon was going to write a book to facilitate his thoughts and feelings. He would put all his thoughts and the day of the accident, which he called “Black Day”, into a book, and in the book he would create a separate reality and overcome his anxiety.

According to Ramtha, the destiny you fulfill is something you create. And reality is individual. It takes a moment to imagine happiness and your whole body feels it. To play the role of a miserable creature with no one to befriend, also takes a moment. And in that moment you feel sadness and self-pity.
This is exactly what Cry Of Fear is about. What sets it apart from other horror games is that you don't just have to fight the monsters you encounter. Because every monster you encounter embodies one of Simon's anxieties or fears.

For example, the boss with the chainsaw represents Simon's fear of suicide, the boss that spins around without a care in the world, damaging himself and the environment, represents Simon's fear of going insane, Doctor Purnell's scary masked form that appears throughout the game represents Simon's distrust of the Doctor, and the boss that appears after being rejected by Sophie represents Simon blaming himself and his disability for his rejection. And the choice here is as much Simon's to make in Simon's life as it is yours to make in yours. In the book Simon writes, he can further his distrust of Dr. Purnell, or he can choose to trust Dr. Purnell, or he can fight against the anxiety he feels because of his disability, or he can forgive him and move on with his life. Simon gets a little better as he chooses to face each enemy, each monster. His shooting of Dr. Purnell after giving him an empty pistol represents his growing trust in Dr. Purnell. After defeating the boss after being rejected by Sophie, he is able to let go of his worries about his injury. The endings of the game belong to Simon's own realm of thought. If he refuses to trust everyone and at the same time refuses to fight his anxieties, at the end of the game Simon commits suicide and takes Sophie and Dr. Purnell with him. In another ending, if he chooses to accept his disability but not to trust Dr. Purnell, he kills Dr. Purnell and lets Sophie live. At the same time, he kills himself. There is only one ending to the play that can be described as a good ending. It is the ending in which Simon both trusts Dr. Purnell and overcomes his anxiety about his disability. In this ending Simon faces one last enemy, himself.

If Simon accomplishes all this, overcomes all his anxieties and trusts Purnell, at the end of the play a twisted and anxious version of himself, his face covered in blood, awaits him. If Simon overcomes his own distorted thinking, he also overcomes his paranoid schizophrenia through a hallucination. He only takes two police officers with him.

Whatever has happened is only what can happen. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can change anything we have experienced. We cannot change even the most insignificant detail in our lives. There is no sentence like, “If I had done this, this would have happened.” Whatever happened is what should have happened, what could have happened.