Let's address the elephant in the room first. As a series, Hello Neighbor has yet to catch on as a critical darling. The first two releases in the Mr. Peterson-focused puzzle/horror/adventure/platformer/escape room franchise are definitely beloved by a group of passionate fans, but .

Previous review scores aside, I'll still be the first to tell you that Hello Neighbor really does have more beneath the surface than you might expect going into it. No, this really isn't just a game that deals with hiding from a crazy, murderous neighbor.

The games get pretty out there, and also focus on some surprising topics like childhood trauma, loss, and regret as .

Because of all of this, I'm curious to see what the forthcoming Hello Neighbor 3 can do to finally capitalize on the buzz it's always had in some circles. This time around, the IP seems like it could be primed to finally make a massive mark if this newest title can package all the positives of the series together into something fresh and interesting.

While this prototype was still very much a work-in-progress, I can definitely see the directions HN3 is seemingly desiring to go, and I'm interested to see how it ultimately ends up.

The prototype build dropped me right into a new depiction of what Raven Brooks is going to look like this time around. While I know the final build won't actually look like the game I experienced, the somewhat unfinished vibe really took me back to my first time playing Slenderman back in the day.

Fittingly, I do think dared to experiment with. Armed with a flashlight and a set of binoculars, my only instruction was to try to call a bus to get out of town after being mysteriously dropped off with none of my belongings.

Surrounded by trees, I followed the road to town to see just where I'd been placed. Several run-down houses were in the area, and I was able to explore them in order to find more items, like crowbars, screwdrivers, plungers, and ladders that I could use to destroy, repair, and reach new areas of the buildings and rooftops.

Other buildings on the outskirts of town, like an abandoned gas station, also held items I could collect and add to my inventory. There wasn't a ton I could do with these things in this current build of the game, but so I knew where to pick them up on my next run attempt just in case.

What I could do was leverage weapons like the crowbar against locked doors, windows, and security cameras attached to lawn mowers in order to access new rooms of the houses or free myself from danger.

The security systems in buildings would lock down the premises if I got caught on camera, which would result in doors locking, windows barring, and staircases rising into the ceiling. This forced me to have to get creative with an escape route, often leading to me finding a secret passage under a bed or in a cabinet that I could crawl through to freedom.

What's cool about the direction of Hello Neighbor 3 is that it seems like , allowing for players to get creative in how they tackle every problem they'll face in the game.

It seems like a more open-ended direction to the game development, with and actions to make progress.

There were ultimately multiple ways in the prototype to get cell phone service and call the bus to get out of town. One example was to find a lightning rod to power a Ferris wheel, allowing me to ride it to the top and make a phone call at this higher elevation. To even access the theme park where the Ferris wheel was at, I had to eat a cake, which boosted my run speed, allowing me to get past an enemy in the woods.

This is a cool thing, and implies that to get out of danger and back to a safe location, far away from more than just Mr. Peterson. It was definitely fun to learn how I could use several different items in my inventory to solve puzzles and smartly get to safety when I needed to.

It's not Hello Neighbor without Mr. Peterson, but I still was never able to meet him in my time with this prototype. But that doesn't mean that Raven Brooks was completely empty, either. My first encounter was a humanoid figure with a street sign for a face that charged me straight at me. Not quite the welcoming party I'd hoped for.

Getting caught by him simply triggered a respawn, though I was missing all of the gear I had collected before this weird encounter. I tried attacking him with a crowbar, but was not able to do any damage to him., but it did kind of seem like the game was hinting at it occasionally in moments like this.

I also learned that if I ventured too far into the woods off the beaten path, I'd be attacked by a traffic cone-wearing creature simply referred to as the "forest dweller." Was there a human head under that cone? There's no way to really know, but it definitely gave off the vibe that

Encountering the forest dweller would end my run entirely, unlike my other enemy encounters, which would simply respawn me elsewhere and cause me to lose all my gear. This made exploring the woods a huge risk, as the forest dweller would seemingly pop out of nowhere and capture me as soon as I went off a trail.

It was fun to learn that this creature seemed to be on an exact timer before he'd capture me, which forced me to get creative and use speed-boosting items to traverse patches of the forest if I ever needed to. I appreciated having a thoughtful workaround to this issue, and I felt smart when I figured this out.

Aside from these hostile creatures, there were also two human characters around town. One was a woman with humongous blue hair, and another a man who would get in a car, crash it, and then get attacked in the woods by the forest dweller, never to be seen again.

These NPCs followed a mostly set route, allowing me to follow them and observe their routines, which I imagine will be a feature found in the final game, too. According to the game's Steam page, implying to me that the actions we'll take in Hello Neighbor 3 can influence the outcomes of a loop of the game, also assuming that this is more of a run-based experience than previous installments in the franchise.

Each NPC I encountered also had a meter above their heads, designating if they were enemy, stranger, neutral, or friend. These categorizations seem to factor into the stealth needed to interact with/circumvent them. As you'd expect, an enemy would attack me outright, while a stranger would give me my space in the open world, but still kick me out of their house if I broke in through a window or disabled their security system. Honestly, that's a reasonable reaction.

What I think is particularly interesting about the newest entry to the franchise is that it seems to be adopting more of a sandbox-like design than the previous titles. Surely, the original Hello Neighbor was pretty limited in scope in terms of really only existing within Mr. Peterson's house, as sprawling and trippy as it ultimately ended up being.

Hello Neighbor 2 expanded the game out into a collection of locations around Raven Brooks, with our investigative protagonist Quentin spending a lot of time in the town's museum. Broadening the scope of the series in this way was a cool idea, but it was still fairly siloed off at the end of the day.

That's why it's cool to see Hello Neighbor 3 seemingly open up into a game where you're free to roam around a much more expansive area that, in theory, should feel much more alive and interesting as a result. If the game is really more of a run-based experience where you're able to learn and adapt with each new attempt, I think that could result in an interesting experience as well.

I think the game also exploring more of a survival-horror theme is intriguing, and we'll see just how deep that all goes as the developers continue to build HN3. While the series has always been about collecting random items and using them to solve some environmental puzzles and unlock new pathways, that aspect definitely seems to have the potential to be pushed further in 3.

And of course, it will be fun to see just how Mr. Peterson, glorious mustache and all, manages to present himself in this latest entry in the franchise. and overall scope of the game this time around.

If you're interested in keeping up with more forthcoming information about Hello Neighbor 3, the devs have been doing a wonderful job at posting regular and thoughtful updates over on the game's Steam page. You can also wishlist the title and be among the first to know about any future updates.