The Cecil: The Journey Begins | PC Review

Welcome to The Cecil Hotel, where the atmosphere is horror-fantastic, but your being here makes very little sense. The game is an enjoyable and quick first person point-and-click puzzler with combat elements. However, it showed a few cracks the longer I thought about it.

Checking In: The Story

The Cecil: The Journey Begins opens with you waking up in a prison cell, on the hunt for your missing wife, Sarah. Escaping the cell is remarkably easy: pick up the plunger, plunge the toilet, grab the chisel, chisel the bricks, find the lockpicking tool, and open the door! Why even bother putting me in a prison cell?

Once you’re out, you gather some abstract backstory and make your way to the hotel. The tone is eerie and ominous—bad things have happened here, and since you’re here, they’re probably going to continue. Exploration and atmosphere are key. While the story matters, you won’t make progress unless you explore: look around, flip switches, remove lids.

The story drops creepy moments, like the classic scratchy old-timey radio. When you reach the hotel, an audio cue and quick cut to an ominous statue gave me genuine chills—just a statue in the end, but well done, developers!

The main narrative—find your wife—is simple. But even for a short game, there’s a lot to unpack. At times, it almost feels like your search for Sarah is an afterthought (don’t worry, John still cares). First, you’ll have to unravel the hotel’s history and mystery.

Unlocking the Doors and Hallways: Gameplay and Mechanics

Mechanically, The Cecil: The Journey Begins is a simple game. Walk around the hotel, interact with the prompted items, and see what you can find or learn. The mouse and keyboard work fine and dandy, with smooth panning of the room, and crisp contrast making exploration a breeze.

The puzzles are not hard but also not easy. I found them to be a lot less frustrating than other games of its kind. Sure, finding the right vase out of the eight available to find a key was a little tiresome, but at least I didn’t have to jump through three other hoops or remove the vase lids in some undisclosed order. Nope, I just looked in a few of them until I found the key and was able to move forward.

Pausing right here because once you find the key, you’re introduced to the main villain. The jump scare and terrifying quote made me fumble with the mouse until I almost missed the click prompt to slam the door. Well, done developers!

Room Service: A Touch of Criticism

The Cecil: The Journey Begins would have you feel like it’s an open map. However, the narrative and gameplay is deceptively linear. The wide open spaces and plenty of items to turn over hide the fact that there is literally one path forward and you cannot get there until you find what you’re looking for in the current room. Obviously, as you unlock new areas, the “open-world” gets wider since you can return to places you’ve already visited while trying to find the clue to the next area.

My big gripe in the mechanics of the game? The silly path blockers. Nope, I can’t go that way, there’s a pillar on the ground that a toddler could climb over! Nope, can’t get through that section of the wall, the crumbling and rotted wood boards just won’t budge. It serves a purpose, but it’s laughable. 

There are also a few times where combat is key. Along your journey, you find an old-timey pistol which you use to take down the here-and-there monsters that are hidden within the hotel. You need to shoot them… a lot! Thankfully, there are plenty of bullets and the enemies move pretty slowly. For me, these combat elements were a nice break but seemed wildly out of place.

The Cecil: The Journey Begins isn’t breaking new ground. These are puzzles we’ve solved before, gameplay we’re all used to, and classic (but effective) jump scares. 

Creepy Hotel Vibes

Visually, The Cecil: The Journey Begins is dark but stunning. The rooms are a little too unique visually, making my head spin. But, each room is designed with care and effort. Creepy blood effects, shadowy corners, unsettling enemy designs… it all works to keep you on edge while searching for your wife. 

The music sets the mood but is often in the background. The sound design is stellar, though. The audio cues and interactive noises keep the searching interesting. When the music is present, it’s effective. Because it’s in the background most of the time, it’s also pretty forgettable.

Taking a moment to say some really nice things about the sound design. Each item makes an appropriate sound that kept me immersed in the game. The clinks and clanks, the eerie noises, the grinding of a stone statue on a wooden shelf. I cannot speak highly enough about how the sound matches perfectly with the graphics and environment.

The Cecil: The Journey Begins Final Verdict

Overall, The Cecil: The Journey Begins was a good game. It didn’t overstay its welcome nor did it frustrate me with manufactured difficulty. The environment, especially the sound, kept me engaged throughout and is worthy of my recommendation on its own. 

The story meanders quite a bit and introduces plot points that felt like filler since the main point of the story was to find your wife. But, the filler was displayed in an entertaining way. Like I said above, it didn’t overstay its welcome. These pieces of filler weren’t that bad considering you can make it through the game in just over three hours if you make the right decisions. It’s more like watching an interactive movie with a couple of gun fights.

Even though I’m lamenting that I was never able to simply walk over that pillar, I am giving The Cecil: The Journey Begins a recommendation especially to those who find the trailer appealing. If the trailer looks good, then you will like this game.

To hear me talk more about The Cecil: The Journey Begins, be sure to listen to the April 17, 2025 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 1:18:33 time stamp.

This review is based on a PC copy of The Cecil: The Journey Begins provided by Outrageous PR for coverage purposes. As of the time of this writing, it is exclusive to this platform.