Daymare is clearly inspired by games like Resident Evil.

The game hits all of the same notes, but also manages to do a few unique things that make it more of a hardcore experience.
The campaign has you play as multiple different characters, all with their own motivations.

I found that the story was really interesting. It took a lot of interesting turns that pleasantly surprised me. As for the voice acting, it's very hit or miss. Sometimes it can be incredibly awkward, while other times it's really convincing. Overall though, I actually was looking forward to seeing what would happen next.

Now for the gameplay. You are equipped with a flashlight, and have 3 slots for guns. Ammo conservation is relatively important, so you can also melee enemies out of your way if you don't think you should spend bullets on them.

For the most part, you creep through dark rooms, illuminated atmospherically by your flashlight. I enjoyed that I was rewarded with useful items if I explored a bit. If you have the necessary item, you can hack special doors that contain good resources. Every now and again, you will need to figure out puzzles in the environment to progress. They feel straight out of the Resident Evil series, and can sometimes be pretty challenging.

You will find scattered notes throughout the world that either give you tips on puzzles, or further flesh out the lore. Interestingly enough, some of the notes even have passwords that can be used to access files on a website the devs have set up. It's cool and makes you feel like you're actually accessing forbidden files. Although, that database could have easily been in the game, and would be a bit more convenient to use, like for people playing offline. Still, it's a bit original and fun.

Another interesting feature the game implements is realistic gun magazines. By default, there's no HUD indicating your remaining ammo (but you can turn that on). The game does a good job in sound design, because you can actually hear when your last bullet has left the magazine.

When you've run out of ammo, you can either hold the reload button to slowly reload to the next magazine. This takes about 1-2 seconds, but you keep both mags.
Alternatively, you can tap the reload button and drop the mag out of your gun onto the floor. This is used during intense fights. You can retrieve your mags after a fight though.

I thought this was a really interesting way to handle a gun in a horror game. It makes you a lot more scared, because things take time and feel heavy. Switching guns also takes longer than in most games. And after every fight, when you think you're safe, you can combine stacks of ammo with your magazines to fill them up. You can even switch them out with stronger bullets that you might find. I personally really enjoyed this whole system, but I can see it being tedious for some players. I would just say try to be open to it, because it might just feel overwhelming because it's not often found in games, but it really adds an interesting dynamic.

The game also plays around with the healing system. You can consume healing items from your inventory, or alternatively, combine them with empty syringes so that you can use them as a quick item during the heat of battle. You can also combine different syringes to buff their benefits.

There are also different items that can increase your stamina temporarily, or give you better perception which will highlight interactables from further away.

Interestingly, if you use too many syringes in a short period of time, you can overdose and start to take damage over time. Although I never got anywhere close to that threshold.

Now onto gunplay. The shooting itself feels pretty good, and zombies take different amounts of shots to die, which makes them feel unpredictable and scary. Sometimes they even get up after you think you've gotten them.

Games like these are generally designed around a controller, however aiming with one in this game feels terrible. There's very strange acceleration, and it felt so unnatural to aim, I was shooting all over the place. So I switched over the mouse and keyboard, and while that fixed the aiming issue, menu navigation felt a bit awkward, since you can't do anything with your mouse. Still, it was the better option out of the two.

Another minor problem I had was at times I felt like the game made me go back and forth through the same areas multiple times. Resident Evil did that sometimes too, but you would unlock shortcuts to shorten your travel time. That didn't really happen in Daymare, so it got tedious at times, but they did try spice things up with new enemies and whatnot on your subsequent visits.

To conclude, I think the game is really great. I thought the story was overall very interesting, and the gameplay was intense. There are minor issues here and there in all aspects of the game, but in the end it's still genuinely fun, and I would recommend it to fans of the genre!