Martha is Dead

I have to start this by saying that Martha is Dead has one of the creepiest teaser trailers I have ever seen for a video game. I am a huge horror nut, so any game that promises me a dark and disturbing psychological horror experience is going to get my attention…. Even if I do have a bit of trouble sleeping after I have played this. This is the kind of game that will keep you wanting to push forward and playing more and more to find out what happened. It is also the kind of game that you will not be able to stop thinking about after you have played it!

The Horrors Of War

The setting for Martha is Dead is Italy in 1944, the war is raging and for young, Giulia, her life is turned upside down when her twin sister Martha is murdered and her body is found drowned. Giulia is such an interesting character as we follow her quest to find out what happened to her sister.

That alone sounds great, but this game has such a dark and disturbing twist due to Giulia’s family and her experience of the great war. There is a pretty big twist early on that I will not spoil, but bone chilling is the best way to describe it.

First Person Horror

The gameplay of Martha is Dead is all played from the first-person perspective. As you would expect this makes things even more tense and scary as you go about trying to help Giulia deal with the trauma of her sister’s death, finding who killed her, and also dealing with the brutal reality of war that she finds herself living in. You are free to pretty much explore where you want and the gameplay moves at a decent pace. There are many moments that require you to make a fast decision and these can really make your head spin as you frantically try to figure out what the right thing to do is. Sometimes there is no right thing, just a lesser of two evils!

That Italian Countryside

The presentation of this game along with the excellent story really does blend together to make this a very immersive experience. Martha is Dead has you going all over the Tuscany countryside and Giulia is an avid photographer so you get to play around and truly take in the beauty of this place.

Of course, this is a horror game so you are going to be seeing a great deal of disturbing stuff too, but the stark contrast between beauty and horror makes things so much more intense here. The voice acting in this game is great and the default language is Italian, I will always use the English voice acting, but it is very cool that they have tried to be as authentic as possible here.

Pros:

• The story here is amazing
• The writing and the voice acting bring the story to life amazingly well
• I like the way the gameplay forces you to make tough decisions
• It is one of the best horror games of 2022!

Cons:

• This is a pretty messed up and disturbing story to play through
• I am not sure it is the kind of game you would play through more than once