Hello Neighbor

In Hello Neighbor, the player character has moved into an old house across the street from a mysterious neighbor who is behaving abnormally and seems to be keeping a secret in his basement. The player's task is to find the details and brutal secrets of the neighbor's house and solve a series of puzzles to collect the item(s) needed to unlock and access his basement. As the player explores the neighbor's house, they must not be spotted by the mysterious neighbor, or they will be chased down, and if the player is not quick enough to hide or escape, they will be captured and be sent back out onto the street. The player can stun the neighbor by throwing objects at him for an easier escape.

If the player is caught or suffers a serious injury, they will be sent back to their own house and will have to break in again. Upon starting again, the player must be more careful, as the neighbor will deduce movements from the last attempt and set up traps. The player can use the game settings to turn on "friendly" neighbor mode, preventing the neighbor from setting these traps and causing him to be less aggressive in his pursuits. However, he is still to be avoided at all costs.

Act 1 begins in 1996. A 13 year old boy named Nicky Roth is playing on the street of Raven Brooks when he passes by the home of his neighbor, Theodore Peterson. Nicky hears screaming and approaches Theodore's window to witness him forcing what appears to be a child into his basement, but is caught by Theodore. From here, Nicky manages to sneak into Theodore's house, avoids his pursuit and enters the basement to discover it's a complex maze. Nicky finds a heavily locked door, but is captured by Theodore and locked inside a desolate room.

Two months later, in Act 2, Nicky manages to escape his cell with the help of Theodore's son, Aaron, and escapes the basement only to find that Theodore has erected a massive fence around his property to prevent anyone from entering or escaping. Nicky is forced to solve several puzzles to find a way to escape Theodore's property. After crossing the fence Nicky flees back to his home escaping Theodore, who, hearing a loud crash, does not give chase and instead simply stares at Nicky before locking up his house.

Russian studio Dynamic Pixels started development of Hello Neighbor in May 2014. The game was released as an alpha build in 2015. It was later approved for sale as an early access game by the Steam Greenlight program and a Kickstarter campaign was launched to fund further development but ultimately failed to reach its goal of $100,000, only raising $12,809. However, the studio later signed a deal with tinyBuild to fully fund and publish the project.

The pre-Alpha version of the game was released on 29 September 2016. The Alpha 1 version of Hello Neighbor was released on 26 October 2016. Alpha 2 was released on 22 November 2016. Alpha 3 was released on 22 December 2016.

Review aggregator website Metacritic reports "generally unfavorable reviews" for Hello Neighbor on all platforms. Criticism was directed towards the gameplay, control scheme and technical performance, though it was praised for its story aspects and art style.