Silly Polly Beast

About Silly Polly Beast

Silly Polly Beast is a 2025 action horror game made by Anji (Andrei Chernyshov) and published by Top Hat Studios. Polly is a mute orphan who never has any luck. She plans to escape the orphanage with her best friend Alice, but Alice never shows up, and the search ends with Polly falling into an underworld. There a confined corpse enlists her as a hunter and promises help if she defeats three demons. Flashbacks to the orphanage run through each chapter, and Polly speaks only through her thoughts.

The game moves between exploring and fighting. The areas connect to each other, with locked paths and shortcuts, and some sections switch to a comic-book or 2D look. Battles change between side-on and top-down views. Polly's starting handgun refills its bullets from light, which is dimmed during fights, so you have to space out your shots. Her skateboard is a melee weapon that runs on stamina. Later she finds a shotgun and other guns, but can carry only one extra gun, and its ammo comes from enemy drops and boxes. Traps can be turned on enemies, and forbidden spells make her more dangerous. The underworld city is covered in deadly fog, and her fog bracelet glows red when it is close.

A cafe works as the shop and the fast-travel point. Masks taken from enemies open certain doors. In some conversations you choose what Polly does; a few choices end the game, and the autosave on entering each room brings you back.

It is a hard game. Noisy Pixel found healing items and ammo scarce, waves of enemies punishing, and some enemies transforming into worse creatures after they seem beaten. The look is stylized, with an anime-style heroine in dim, ruined places: graveyards by lamplight, flooded halls, classrooms and kitchens where something waits. It carries warnings for violence, blood and gore. The main story takes about six and a half hours on HowLongToBeat's figures.

Players on Steam rate it Very Positive; critics are more mixed, with a Metacritic score of 73 and an OpenCritic average of 69. It is sold on Steam, GOG, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox, and there is a free demo on the PlayStation Store. It suits players who want horror with an action game's pace rather than a slow game about hiding. Players who liked the side-on mansion of Withering Rooms or the gory runs of Dead Estate will find something close here.

How to play Silly Polly Beast

1. Start the story: Polly sets out to escape the orphanage with Alice, and ends up in the underworld.
2. Explore the connected areas, opening locked paths and shortcuts, and watch your fog bracelet; it glows red when the deadly fog is close.
3. Fight monsters in the side-on and top-down battles with your light-fed handgun, your skateboard and one extra gun.
4. Collect masks from enemies to open new doors, and learn forbidden spells as you find them.
5. Visit the cafe to buy items and fast travel, and choose carefully in conversations, since some choices end the game.

Tips

• Save the ammo of your extra gun for hard fights; it only comes back from enemy drops and boxes.
• Use traps against groups, and let enemies hit each other with their attacks.
• Dodge by rolling through an enemy head-on rather than to the side.
• Look for challenge rooms on side paths; they hold upgrades that add ammo to your handgun.
• Treat the fog bracelet's red glow as a warning to change course.
• If you want to try it first, there is a free demo on the PlayStation Store.

Questions