📷 Martha is Dead | XSX | Review | 7/10 | "The Lady of The Lake" 📷 @WiredP #IndieGame #IndieGameDev

Set in Tuscany during wartime (1944), Martha is Dead is a dark and sinister rural horror title that covers a lot of ground that will have players clearing their throat or possibly adjusting their spectacles in discomfort, as this isn’t a game that shies away from visceral thrills.

A first-person adventure, the initial thing about the game that hit me was the presentation, from the bucolic location of an Italian farmhouse - complete with surrounding forest and vineyard -  through to the many interactive icons that litter the family home, building up a rich picture of life at the time – Martha is Dead creates a powerful image, heavily evoking the time at which the game is set.

The audio is also of note, as it weaves from gentle background ambience, through to keening violins and – quite often – to horrific, experimental and unsettling moments which admittedly ran the gamut of being too much. 

I’m purposefully avoiding discussing the plot here, as the twists and turns it takes are intrinsic to the enjoyment of the game, heading in with little idea of how things will proceed – or even what the endgame is will certainly mean that you take more from the experience, as the initial moments of getting a feel of the location and an understanding of the environment gives way to...other things.

In terms of mechanics, Martha is Dead follows a main quest line but there are also side quests that can have an impact on how the story pans out. Whilst most are narrative-focused, moving the story along, the game does an admirable job of mixing things up with an upgradable camera and a pretty robust photography system that reminded me of Umurangi Generation, whereby you can tweak and adjust almost everything about your image as well as using a variety of filters. I can imagine that certain players will keep themselves busy by snapping various pictures and developing them in the farm’s basement lab, purely for fun.

Whilst Martha is Dead has been in the press for the fact that the PlayStation versions have been censored, there really is more to the game than just icky gore. As is usual in these cases, how the game approaches certain sensitive, heavy-duty topics won’t click with everyone, but I was intrigued enough with the main plot and the slower horror approach of ‘let it soak in’ as opposed to constant jump-scares that I enjoyed my time with the game, especially for those quests that involved my trusty camera!