Dreamcore: Liminal Hotel (2025): The Review

Overview

Dreamcore DLC: Liminal Hotel is yet another solid entry for the anthology game. Compared to the first two "original levels" it's a major step up but, for us at least, it's a notch below the very well crafted "Playrooms" level.

Score: 8 out of 10

The Positives ✅

Dreamcore: Liminal Hotel is another solid entry in this horror anthology game. The Liminal Hotel setting captures everything unsettling about transitional spaces: corridors that loop back on themselves, walls that hum faintly, carpets that look familiar but feel wrong for some reason. The developers have mastered that uncanny “familiar” vibe: the light is too yellow, the air too still, the silence too heavy, and it’s mesmerizing. This time, though, that weirdness is structured. It’s not chaos for chaos’ sake; it’s a deliberate descent into layered realities that grow older, more warped, and more sentient the deeper you go.

From a technical standpoint, it’s clear that Unreal Engine 5 is doing serious heavy lifting. The reflections, the shifting textures, the ghostly transitions between decades, all look hauntingly sharp. One moment you’re walking through a 1960s lobby of peeling wallpaper and gold trim, the next you’re in a sterile modern corridor that flickers back to sepia tones mid-step. This shifting aesthetic palette gives Liminal Hotel an identity that’s both dreamlike and terrifying. Unlike previous updates, this one nails variety without losing cohesion. Each layer feels like it belongs to the same nightmare, just viewed through different eras of architecture and decay.  Every discovery, an old elevator panel, a flickering television, a door that leads somewhere it shouldn’t, adds a fragment to a story that’s never explicitly told.

And then there’s that subtle genius: the sound design. Hums, drips, distant knocks, and that impossible sense of someone breathing just behind you. Liminal Hotel proves again that horror doesn’t need monsters to scare you: it needs patience, restraint, and a hallway that just doesn’t end when it should.

The Negatives ⚠️

Even at its most impressive, Liminal Hotel can still be an acquired taste. It’s a game built on tone, not tension spikes, and that means it occasionally drifts into monotony. Some floors feel too similar, too slow, as if the game mistakes repetition for hypnosis. It’s thematically consistent, yes, but when you’ve been walking through identical beige corridors for twenty minutes, atmosphere alone can’t keep your pulse up.

There’s also the issue of pacing imbalance. While the developers stripped away the slower puzzles, what replaced them doesn’t always fill the void. A few sequences, especially near the lower levels, drag without offering meaningful reward or narrative clarity. You start to wonder if the building has run out of tricks or if you’ve simply stopped noticing the changes. For a game about perception, that’s a tricky line to toe.

Technically, performance is good but not flawless. Some frame dips creep in during transitions, particularly in areas with complex lighting or reflections. Nothing catastrophic, but enough to remind you this is still an indie project pushing its engine hard. On consoles, texture streaming can lag behind, causing a few “pop-in” moments that break immersion. And while the new aesthetic direction is beautiful, it can also feel too busy, the constant shifts in era and style occasionally overwhelm rather than intrigue.

The other lingering problem is one Dreamcore hasn’t solved yet: meaningful engagement. It’s stunning to look at, but sometimes hard to connect with. The storytelling remains too abstract for its own good, and while that ambiguity fuels the unease, it also leaves you feeling detached. The Hotel itself is a marvel, but it still feels more like a museum exhibit than a living nightmare. You admire it, but you don’t always feel in it.