Kholat

The game opens with a narrator (voiced by Sean Bean) explaining the details of the Dyatlov Pass Incident right before the player arrives in Ivdel by train, retracing the Dyatlov party's footsteps in this manner. Beginning their hike, the weather begins to worsen, and they spot glowing orange footprints in the snow. After exiting a tunnel the player falls through a hole in the ground but then instantly finds themselves on the mountainside near a bivouac site, where they go to sleep. Waking up, the player finds a glowing crater containing a meteorite, levitating pillar-like boulders with glowing inscriptions, a bright orange light in the sky, and several glowing, humanoid figures. Following their trails, the narrator comes across many notes from an investigator with the Russian Research Unit for Natural Phenomena (RRUNP) named Vitalij G., a mysterious man named Anton, and other individuals as well as news articles and classified government documents.
The player explores a wide range of notable locations scattered across a vast valley, such as an abandoned church, a cosmodrome, several campsites, an altar lined with totem-pole-like torches. They also begin collecting a series of coordinates which lead them to more clues while being pursued by hostile, shadow-like creatures, who must be avoided at all costs.
Piecing together the notes, in 1950 the Kremlin created the RRUNP with the aim of studying and understanding a mysterious paranormal phenomenon called "Anomaly 7" in the Ural Mountains. This anomaly has been linked to a wide range of bizarre incidents; one such occurring in Igarka in 1950, halting the construction of the Salekhard–Igarka Railway. Other incidents included the inexplicable disintegration or solidification of dozens of gulag prisoners, the appearance of moving lights in the sky, and strange, orange gas that kills or maddens those who contact it. A branch of the Unit called Section 22 conducted inhumane experiments on convicts simply called "subjects." Vitalij, a member of the Unit, was dispatched to locate the victims of the Dyaltlov Pass Incident in relation to the Anomaly but suffered an unexplained mental breakdown as a result of finding their bodies in horrible condition. He later assaulted his wife Viktoria in a fit of madness and was permanently committed to an asylum in Moscow, on suspicion of having an accomplice murder Viktoria's sister. Finally reaching the dreaded pass, the player again encounters the levitating stones, and opening their notebook the pages begin to fly off into the wind as they pass out.
Awaking in pitch darkness, the player is drawn towards an orange glow at the peak of the mountain as the narrator's angered voice begins to echo in their ears. Finding a tent, they enter, and the screen fades to black as a woman's scream can be heard.
If the player collects every note, a voice clip will play over a black screen revealing the narrator to be Anton, attending to the player on their deathbed. Attempting to turn off the player's life support, he panics when he realizes the player is conscious and can hear him.