Let’s take a closer look at the Ghosts mission from the Bad Blood DLC.
At first, the mission fits right into the overall atmosphere of the main game – a typical “sneak in” setup. Even I assumed, until reaching the door, that the objective would simply be to steal Defalt’s data or his equipment. Instead, what follows is something entirely different. In a single step, we cross from thriller into full-on psychological horror the moment we enter.
Setup / Atmosphere
Cold and merciless. The first thing we see upon entering is a mirror of Ray's guilt, projecting nothing but raw violence back at us. Ray’s “victims” appear as faceless mannequins, yet through the Profiler we can identify their names and discover exactly how they died during the Blackout. The whole environment is a fragile, decaying structure – and that fragility amplifies the sense of vulnerability. Neon lights on the floor guide us forward, while newspaper clippings about the victims hang around the place like ghosts themselves. Darkness swallows the place, ensuring that Ray’s guilt is not what dominates the space, but rather his crime. Defalt takes advantage of that, knowing that Ray is still struggling to move on even after a decade. The whole scene is deeply unsettling, not only because of its unnerving setup, but that we are seeing what Raymond did in front of us. It's shocking to think that all those lives were lost because of a decision he made and thinking it would be for the greater good.
From hacker thriller to psychological horror in a blink of an eye
This might be the mission that captures the game’s chilling undertone the best – the tragedy of Raymond Kenney. Up until now, the DLC had leaned on mechanics similar to the main game: stealth, hacking, and strategy. But suddenly, here, there are no weapons, no tactics – only observation. The environment drills mercilessly into Ray’s emotional world, just as the mission’s title suggests: the place is filled with the “Ghosts” haunting him. Like Ray, we are completely powerless as well. We walk among these ghosts as spectators, stripped of agency. And on top of that comes uncertainty: we don’t know what will collapse, explode, or fall on us next. The sequence with the elevator victim in particular ramps the tension to the maximum, before we enter the last room.
The RE7 Parallel
The similarities with Resident Evil 7 are striking. This section of the DLC feels very close to the Bakers’ house: filled with traps, morbid set pieces, and the sense that danger could come from anywhere. Both spaces are hidden, rotting structures, fragile yet suffocating. When walking through Ray’s “haunted house,” I felt almost the same as when exploring the Bakers’ domain as Ethan: it isn’t just about violence, but about uncertainty and the shocking reveals waiting around every corner of the place. That’s what makes the setup so perfect – it confronts us with tragedy in the most disturbing way possible.
There’s also a parallel between Defalt and Jack’s motivations. Jack wants Ethan to suffer because he can never again be Eveline’s father; Defalt, on the other hand, is driven by vengeance and retribution for his brother’s death. Different sources, but both spring from personal loss and channel into cruelty. The key difference, is that Jack was controlled by Eveline's contamination, making him powerless against her force, while Defalt’s motivation is just simple hatred for what Ray has done.
Loss of Control
In the final room, Ray faces the most devastating moment: he finds a figure resembling Defalt's brother hanging from the ceiling, just as a news broadcast about the Blackout begins to play. But here, the story is twisted – it portrays Ray as a cold-blooded murderer, erasing the complexity of his motives. At this moment, the pragmatic, engineer persona crumbles. Ray no longer restrains himself. He shouts at Defalt, insisting that this isn’t how it happened, before lashing out physically – smashing one of the cross-shaped TVs with his foot. Ray not only lashed out because he felt powerless against Defalt's taunting, but because he had been here before. Let's not forget that Blume did the same to him after the Blackout, they cut ties with him, humiliated him through the news broadcast, and in addition he had to run for his life. That frustration definitely hit Ray differently, he just barely got away from Pawnee and had to keep running, and you can tell he hates even the thought of going back in the same state—which is being a dead legend.
Defalt ruthlessly forces Ray to confront his own pain and guilt, mocking him in the process. He taunts him, suggesting he must have felt powerful when so many people died because of his actions, laughing at him and calling him nothing but a killer. He shows no interest in Ray’s true intentions or the fact that he wanted to do good. What adds to it more is that Defalt doesn't want to kill Ray, just break his spirit once again. He wanted Ray to feel the same way he did when the Blackout happened, just erase his moral compass. The total emotional collapse we witness twists Ray’s persona inside out, projecting his hidden anguish in the coldest, harshest way possible.
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