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Hello Neighbor
2017 video game From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Hello Neighbor is a stealth horror game developed by Dynamic Pixels and published by tinyBuild. Initially released as public alphas from 2016 to 2017, it received a full release for Windows and Xbox One on 8 December 2017, and later for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android on 26 July 2018.
 | It has been suggested that this article be split out into a new article titled Hello Neighbor (franchise). (Discuss) (May 2024) |
The players controls Nicky Roth, who witnesses some strange happenings at the house of his next-door neighbor, Theodore Peterson.[citation needed] His goal is to successfully sneak into the basement of the house to uncover a dark secret while avoiding being caught by Theodore.[3] The game's artificial intelligence (AI) modifies the neighbor's behavior based on the player's past actions, such as setting traps along paths the player followed in a previous attempt and also setting up some cameras.[4][5][6]
While the initial alpha versions of Hello Neighbor were received positively, the final product was met with largely negative reviews. The gameplay, control scheme and technical performance have been heavily criticized, though the story, the story elements and the art style were praised. The game spawned a franchise, beginning with a prequel, Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek, released in December 2018. Two multiplayer spin-offs, Secret Neighbor and Hello Engineer, were released in October 2019 and October 2021, respectively. A standalone sequel, Hello Neighbor 2, was released on 6 December 2022.[7]
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Gameplay
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In Hello Neighbor, the player character has moved into an old house across the street from a mysterious neighbor who is behaving abnormally and seems to be keeping a secret in his basement. The player's task is to find the details and brutal secrets of the neighbor's house and solve a series of puzzles to gather the item needed to unlock and access his basement. As the player explores the neighbor's house, they must not be spotted by the mysterious neighbor, or they will be chased down, and if the player is not quick enough to hide or escape, they will be captured and be sent back out onto the street. The player can stun the neighbor by throwing objects at him for an easier escape. If the player is caught or suffers a serious injury, they will be sent back to their own house and will have to break in again. Upon starting again, the player must be more careful, as the neighbor will deduce movements from the last attempt and set up traps.[8] The player can use the game settings to turn on "friendly" neighbor mode, preventing the neighbor from setting these traps and causing him to be less aggressive in his pursuits. However, he is still to be avoided at all costs.[9]
The game is divided into four parts: Act 1 to 3, and Act Finale. The game is played in a first-person perspective, and the player must aim a reticle at certain objects to interact with them or to throw or use a held item (for example, throwing a ball at a window or aiming a crowbar at nails to remove them). Up to four items can be kept in an inventory space. Items of the same kind cannot be stacked together in one slot. The controls are, of course, different on different platforms.[10]
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Plot
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In 1996, A boy named Nicky Roth is chasing a beach ball, playing football down the street of Raven Brooks before stopping by his neighbor, Theodore Peterson's home. He hears what he presumes is a child screaming and approaches Theodore's window, witnessing him stuffing a child inside his basement only to get caught and thrown back at his house on the other side of the street. From here, Nicky must access Theodore's basement, using a red key, which is located on the second floor of Theodore’s house. Upon doing so, Nicky enters Theodore's complex basement and descends further into the maze, before reaching a door locked with locks of all colors while being pursued by Theodore. The Act ends with Nicky being captured by Theodore, and locked inside a desolate room with windows displaying fake pictures of the outdoors, ending Act 1.
Some time after the events of Act 1, Nicky manages to escape his cell with the help of Theodore's son, Aaron, and escape the basement, only to find that Mr. Peterson has erected a massive fence around his property to prevent anyone from entering or escaping. Nicky is forced to solve several puzzles to find a way to escape Mr. Peterson's property. Once he crosses the fence, he flees back to his home, and Mr. Peterson, hearing a loud smash implied to be caused by his son Aaron, does not give chase, instead staring Nicky dead in the eyes, before locking back up his house, ending Act 2.
Years later, an adult Nicky is evicted from his apartment and he decides to return to his old family home. Raven Brooks had finally succumbed to its cruel fate, and he finds his house in disrepair while Mr. Peterson's home is nothing but a pile of ruins. While inspecting the ruins, Nicky is haunted by a dark shadow-like creature ("The Thing"), which is implied to be a manifestation of fear itself, and he returns to his home where he finds an old picture of himself as a child before the phone starts to ring. After answering the phone, Nicky sees The Thing again. Believing he is hallucinating, he goes to sleep as an act of self-therapy. He is awoken by a child's scream and discovers Mr. Peterson's house is back and more surreal than before, due to his trauma. Nicky navigates the house and has surreal experiences, such as learning to double jump by overcoming his fear of the dark, or overcoming his school fears. Eventually, he enters the basement, now older and more surreal like the house, with exaggerated architecture and with a run-in by The Thing. At the end of the basement is a parallel to Act 1, with Mr. Peterson attempting to chase Nicky through the basement.
Entering the room at the end of the basement, Nicky is face-to-face with a cardboard representation of Aaron and a giant version of Mr. Peterson himself. Nicky's task in this Act is to knock him to his knees and get into the giant house on his back. After doing so, he must protect a younger version of himself from The Thing. Each time The Thing attacks and Nicky protects his younger self, Nicky grows larger until he can fight The Thing. After The Thing is defeated, Nicky sees Mr. Peterson in a small two-room house.
When he spots Nicky he runs in desperation towards the window as if to ask for help, but then sighs and sadly turns away. In the other room is a much smaller version of The Thing. Mr. Peterson has boarded the door up on his side and placed a chair against it, signifying that while Nicky faced his fears and overcame them, Mr. Peterson never overcame his fear, instead choosing to lock it away. Unable to help him, Nicky leaves through an Exit door and wakes up from his dream before going outside to unload his car and bring his stuff into his house.
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Development
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Russian studio Dynamic Pixels started development of Hello Neighbor in 2014. The game was released as an alpha build in 2015. It was later approved for sale as an early access game by the Steam Greenlight program and a Kickstarter campaign was launched to fund further development. The studio later signed a deal with tinyBuild to fund and publish the project.[11] The pre-Alpha version of the game was released on 29 September 2016.[12][13][14] The Alpha 1 version of Hello Neighbor was released on 26 October 2016.[15][16][17] Alpha 2 was released on 22 November 2016. Alpha 3 was released on 22 December 2016. Alpha 4 was released on 4 May 2017.
The game went into the beta phase on 25 July 2017.[18][19] For Halloween 2017, a promotional mod was released including multiple elements from the indie game Bendy and the Ink Machine. The mod includes a black and yellow tint, ink, music from the game and multiple appearances of Bendy.[20] The game was originally set for a full release on 29 August 2017,[21] but was delayed until 8 December 2017.[22][23]
The game was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One on 8 December 2017. A timed Microsoft exclusive, Hello Neighbor was later ported to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and mobile devices.[24] The mobile versions of the game are only supported on a limited number of devices and come with a free trial that allows players to play through Act 1, with the option to unlock the remaining two Acts and the Finale with an in-game purchase.[25]
Reception
Reception
Review aggregator website Metacritic reports "generally unfavorable reviews" for Hello Neighbor on all platforms.[26][27][28] Criticism was directed towards the gameplay, control scheme and technical performance, though it was praised for its story aspects and art style.
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Sequels
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Games
In July 2020, tinyBuild acquired the development team from Dynamic Pixels to establish a new studio by the name of Eerie Guest Studios and invested US$15 million into the Hello Neighbor series.[35]
Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek
A prequel to Hello Neighbor, titled Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek, was announced during PAX West in August 2018, and released on 7 December 2018, on the same platforms as the original game, including non-Microsoft systems.[36] Set several years before the events of the original game, Hide & Seek deals with the events in Mr. Peterson's life that caused him to become a recluse.[37]
Secret Neighbor
Secret Neighbor, a multiplayer spin-off of Hello Neighbor, was announced on 10 June 2018, and released on 24 October 2019, for Xbox and PC.[38]
Hello Engineer
Hello Engineer, a multiplayer machinery-building construction game set in the Hello Neighbor universe, was announced on 20 October 2020. A gameplay reveal trailer was released four days later. In Hello Engineer, the Rescue Squad explore an open world based on the abandoned Golden Apple Amusement Park and must collect scrap to build various machines while avoiding Mr. Peterson's attempts to catch them. The game was released for the cloud gaming service Google Stadia on 26 October 2021,[39] and was fully released on 17 August 2023 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft Windows via the Steam marketplace.
Hello Neighbor Nicky's Diaries
Hello Neighbor Nicky's Diaries (also known as Hello Neighbor: Diaries in promotional material) is a mobile spin-off to the first Hello Neighbor, and was released in 11 regions on 22 June 2022, as a test launch. The game was released globally on 6 December 2023.
It was originally intended as a "Mobile Expansion", which had the player going around in "Weeks" to complete "Daily" tasks which hinted at the future of the franchises, being one of the first places more info about the Guest was shown, this build is still available on iOS in some countries to this day.
The game recaps the events of the first Hello Neighbor book, Missing Pieces, and was intended to get content updates to recap the other 2 books in the Nicky Trilogy, however this never happened, as DeMagic has since been shuttered, with no new updates being released since launch.[40]
Hello Neighbor 2
A new Hello Neighbor game initially titled Hello Guest was later revealed to be the Pre-Alpha of Hello Neighbor 2 and on 23 July 2020, it was announced as the sequel to the original game. On this same day, Alpha 1 was also released, with Alpha 1.5 releasing on 26 October 2020.[41] The sequel was announced to be available for Microsoft Windows and Xbox Series X/S.[42] On 10 December 2021, it was announced that a closed Beta would be released on 7 April 2022, which would only be available to those who pre-ordered the game. On 10 February 2022, it was announced that Hello Neighbor 2 would also release on PlayStation 4 and 5. tinyBuild announced that the full game was expected to release on 1 December 2022 for anyone who bought early access with the games deluxe edition before releasing publicly on 6 December 2022, which it did.[7]
Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue
A VR title in the Hello Neighbor franchise titled Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue was announced on 3 November 2022. The game is made by Steel Wool Studios in collaboration with tinyBuild. The game was released on the PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest 2, and PCVR Headsets via the Steam Storefront on 25 May 2023 [43], with a PlayStation VR version releasing on 24 November 2023.[44]
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Other media
Animated series
An animated series made for television based on Hello Neighbor was announced on 17 April 2020, with a pilot episode releasing on YouTube the same day for YouTube members, with the extended cut releasing for everyone in June of the same year.[45][46] The pilot was watched by more than 11 million viewers within the first week, which to tinyBuild's CEO Alex Nichiporchik, "demonstrated the strength of Hello Neighbor as a franchise".[47]
Film adaptation
On November 8, 2024, the YouTube channel of tinyBuild announced that a film adaptation of Hello Neighbor is in development with Boulderlight Pictures.[48] Tyler MacIntyre, who co-wrote the story for Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) and Tragedy Girls (2017; for which he also directed and co-wrote the screenplay), will be writing the script, and tinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik and Welcome to Raven Brooks co-creator Jonathan Joyce will be the producers.[49][50]
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References
External links
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