Wheeling the cadaver of the elderly woman out of storage, the lights flicker overhead. It’s not extreme but the minutiae of it is actually what makes it linger in your mind. The person’s cold, dead, expressionless face on the slab before you is locked; contorted into a grimace that looks more like a surreal painting than a human face. You expect their eyes to flicker open. Their tongue to roll from their mouth as a demonic voice fills the room. But nothing.
You settle them into place, ready to start your work.
The person’s cold, dead, expressionless face on the slab before you is locked; contorted into a grimace that looks more like a surreal painting than a human face. You expect their eyes to flicker open. Their tongue to roll from their mouth as a demonic voice fills the room. But nothing.
Paddy Murphy
That’s when you see it. The shape atop the cabinet full of medical supplies. It’s part shadow figure, part cheshire cat. And before you can really take it in, it’s gone. You breathe and tell yourself everything is fine… When suddenly, the corpse reaches out and wraps a cold, stiff hand around your wrist, pulling you close, screaming in your face.
Described above is a high overview of what you will experience in Darkstone Digital’s, The Mortuary Assistant. Not all encounters mimic the description above, but they are all generally chilling and psychologically disturbing. If you suffer Thanatophobia, this is not the game for you.
The Mortuary Assistant is a first person, narrative driven horror game which places you in the (emotionally traumatized) shoes of Rebecca Owens; a young woman battling the demons of her past. The game begins with Rebecca starting her first night on the job, working for a mortician named Raymond Delver. Spending the night alone in a morgue, poking and prodding at dead bodies is already creepy enough, but Rebecca learns relatively quickly that Raymonds morgue is a bit different to most.
Not all encounters mimic the description above, but they are all generally chilling and psychologically disturbing. If you suffer Thanatophobia, this is not the game for you.
Paddy Murphy
The cadavers have a frustrating habit of going walkabout when you’re not looking or opening their eyes to stare through your soul as you’re filling them with embalming fluid. Shadows and shapes dance at the corners of your peripheral vision as you struggle to perform your relatively menial tasks, presumably for minimum wage.
Your first playthrough won’t take you too long, maybe three to four hours; but that will not be the end of Rebecca’s story. Upon completion of the first shift, many other opportunities open up inside the walls of the morgue. Raymond will explain a bit more about the lore of the demons that plague his business and his ongoing battle against them. You will need to play the game several more times to achieve the true ending
It could be argued that The Mortuary Assistant is a repetitive game. Each cycle effectively plays out the same way. You perform your regular duties as a mortician, get spooked by some random corpse shenanigans, discover the name of the demon that inhabits the space and then determine the correct body to incinerate to destroy the creature. Conditions for failure amount to taking too long to complete the above [which leaves you possessed] or burning the wrong body/demon.
What makes the game so good is how random it all feels?! The mini events, the scares, the psychological sections that delve into Rebecca’s past and psyche are all done so well that it really makes each playthrough feel in some way unique. Getting all five endings is going to take anywhere between ten and twenty hours depending on your skill level and if you’re anything like me, you will find yourself scared absolutely senseless innumerable times.
The Mortuary Assistant offers some of the best scares in horror gaming in 2022. It’s short and a bit repetitive but it doesn’t outstay its welcome and the brief runtime keeps the horror fresh. Sometimes the longer a horror game goes on, the less scary it becomes. The Mortuary Assistant is only available on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.
