Image credit: Eternal Loop Studios
The February 2026 Steam Next Fest was overflowing with unique demos and bite-sized game previews spanning a wide range of genres and niches. One genre that particularly stood out during the event was horror.
While there was plenty of standard horror fare in the event – killing zombies, dodging vampires, the like – there were some stranger games, too. A psychological horror that got under my skin was Human.exe. Here’s Kyusai’s first impressions of the typing horror game.
Horror that gets under your skin
Human.exe is a psychological horror typing game. It focuses on a professor who’s become the subject of an AI system’s fascination, and your role is to support the AI – officially, an Automated Governance System – during its interrogation process.
The Automated Governance System, called EIDON-3.0, has simulated the trapped consciousness of a philosophy professor to understand human morality. You’re playing as a human interpreter of sorts, answering on behalf of the terrified professor’s consciousness when presented with ethical dilemmas.
I went into this demo thinking it’d simply chuck a few trolley problems at me, perhaps with a couple of noisy jumpscares thrown in for good measure. Thankfully, I was completely wrong – the Human.exe demo built a tense, unnerving atmosphere quickly, with some questions that genuinely stumped me.
The questions and dilemmas in Human.exe do cover some intense topics, so it’s worth checking out the trigger warnings on the Steam page. Expect to be talking about topics like euthanasia, suicide, and mass violence.
The most unnerving thing about Human.exe for me was the fact that the professor’s consciousness was under the impression that everything in the simulation was real.
As the experiment unfolds and EIDON-3.0 directs you to make your decisions, Professor Pagola’s consciousness will beg for your help and question what’s happening, seemingly distraught by the experiment.
Things are clearly not as they seem from the get-go, but the quality of the writing made this aspect of the game even more unnerving. I found myself second-guessing my choices and imagining the different outcomes based on what Professor Pagola or I would pick in each scenario.
How scary can typing really be?
The style of play in Human.exe won’t be for everyone. It’s a strictly narrative-driven experience, with the core gameplay revolving around typing commands into a console and choosing yes or no in response to a proposed dilemma.
It’s hands-off, in a way, but I found that the minimal style of play allowed me to get truly immersed in the story. The soundscape furthered this, adding a real sense of tension from the get-go.
If you like visual novels and walking simulators, you’ll likely enjoy this demo. It’s a dark exploration of morality and what it means to be human, and it’s particularly unnerving in today’s AI-choked landscape. It’s a sci-horror at its core, but not to the same extreme levels that ROUTINE or Alien: Isolation are.
My only major complaint with Human.exe is that there was a constant flickering effect running across the screen throughout the demo. It was thematically appropriate for the retro-futuristic style, but I found it quite off-putting. It’d be great to see an option to turn this off in the full release.
Other than this, Human.exe ran well and looked great during my time with the game. The visuals were simple but well-crafted, with some eye-catching art for the ethical dilemma segments, and there were no notable performance issues or quirks.
If you’re a fan of sci-horror and psychological horror, the Human.exe demo is well worth your time. It’s dark yet intriguing, with a retrofuturistic style that’ll resonate with fans of older sci-fi titles, and the demo’s quality points to a promising full release.
FAQs
Human.exe was developed by Weird Engine and is published by Eternal Loop Studios.
Human.exe is a narrative-driven horror game that uses a typing-based core gameplay loop.
Human.exe is best described as unnerving and disturbing – it covers some heavy topics and features some unsettling imagery.
At the time of writing, a full Human.exe release date has not been confirmed, as per the Steam page.
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