I met a money-eating axe murderer in Sorry, We're Closed and now so can you

rockpapershotgun.com:

In Sorry We're Closed, an axe-murdering entrepreneur called Jenny is described in newspaper clippings as both a serial embezzler and as the city's "wealthiest bachelorette". Aside from being a dry reflection of tabloid reporting on women who commit crimes (bad woman! sexy, bad woman!) this is also the kind of incidental character-building you can expect in this perky, retro-styled survival horror. It plays like Silent Hill charged with the hot pink body horror of Porpentine interactive fiction. And judging by my hour of unsettled strolling through the decrepit tube station of the game's demo, it's a powerful combo.

You play a moping break-up victim called Michelle in her "final days" as she becomes cursed with a third eye. Soon enough she is stumbling through grotty corridors and taking panicked potshots at twisted monsters that simply will not die. It's all given that late-90s Resident Evil look with cameras both fixed and following. By the time you encounter Jenny, she has already killed a man, ripped the paper money from his pockets, and shoved them into her mouth, yelling "MAXIMISE PROFITS!" She's a real catch.

I'm not the first of us to crawl through the demo, of course. "Its layers of London are like Silent Hill by way of Persona and Paradise Killer," said Alice O (RPS in peace) when she added it to our 75 most anticipated games of 2024 list. She was not wrong.

It gets the feel of those old games spot on. What's more, it's adept at survival horror's old habit of understatement (aka. the "doghouse" effect). In one room, a portrait of a terrifying woman looms over you, her white eyes and noseless face staring into your soul. "She is well-dressed," says the game. In another room, you find the twisted corpses of some otherworldly creatures hanging from the walls, perhaps they are even humans, mutilated beyond recognition. "This display has a strong smell," it says.

I love this. The detached narrator voice that accompanies environmental moments in old horror