Welcome to my review of Martha is Dead, which is brought to us by developers LKA (The Town Of Light) and publishers Wired Productions (The Falconeer, Deliver Us The Moon). Martha is Dead is a psychological-horror thriller set in the first-person perspective.
Martha Is Dead… Or Is She?!
Martha is Dead is out now on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and PC.
What did I think of this game? Continue reading to find out. Check out my previous review where I played Dealer’s Life 2.
The Game
Martha is Dead is set in Tuscany, 1944 during the height of World War 2. We play as Guilia (pronounced Julia) who has just discovered that her twin sister has been brutally murdered and dumped in the lake near their family home.
A turn of events sees Guilia’s parents believe that the body was in fact Guilia and not Martha, so we take on the identity of Martha. The twin’s parents of course are distraught at losing their daughter, and their father is a high-ranking officer in the German army.
As mentioned the game is set in 1944, and this is reflected well in the game models such as the cameras we use in the game to take photographs to help find out more about situations. We can also just take photographs for the sake of it. The camera mode in the game is brilliant and quite in-depth.
Not only is the camera mode brilliant, but what you must do after this is even better. You have to develop the photos in a darkroom that is in the basement. This is very well thought out and somewhat reminds me of the photo development you must do in The Medium.
The game can be very dark at times, particularly in Guilia’s nightmares she has whilst sleeping. For example, in one of the first nightmares she has, she pictures herself physically cutting Martha’s face off and pretty much wearing it, Face/Off style. That’s it for spoilers though.
The gameplay itself is brilliant, I particularly like the sections where you’re running through the forest and you must choose the correct words to form a sentence. This reminds me a bit of Until Dawn where you must choose the right path during quick-time events, or die.
I found the controls to be very well laid out and did not have any difficulty whilst controlling our protagonist. The control scheme during camera mode is also very well laid out.
As aforementioned the game is set in the first-person perspective which helps a huge amount in immersing the player into the story of Martha is Dead. I sometimes feel horror games that are in third-person don’t fully pull you into the immersion as well as first-person.
Will Guilia find out what happened to her twin sister, Martha? Only you can find that out if you play Martha is Dead. I definitely recommend you play it if you’re a fan of horror games.
Look & Sound
The graphics are dark, grungey, grim, yet beautiful all at the same time. The game looks fantastic on the PlayStation 5. It has the usual two graphics modes of performance or resolution. It is laid out slightly differently in the fact Martha is Dead has the choice of 3840×2160 (4K) or 1920×1080 (Full HD) resolutions. Of course, the latter gives us 60fps, whilst 4K gives us better graphics at a lower frame rate.
Either option played fine in my opinion, but I preferred to choose the higher performance mode for the duration of the game. You can see a comparison of the two in the slider below.
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The audio in Martha is Dead is absolutely bang on. With my 3D Pulse headset on I could hear all sorts of horrible, creepy, and eery noises in all directions when in the woods. It was absolutely terrifying as I didn’t know what was coming, but I knew roughly where from. Usually behind me! Nope!
The music in the game is also spot on. The score is very good and definitely fits the setting of the game.
Length & Replayability
Martha is Dead is not an overly long game, it will take you around 7 hours to finish. The game does have trophies if you wish to take on the usual hunt for them which does help for those times you would like to replay the game.
However, when you think of it, 7 hours isn’t too bad for a horror game. I just feel that the game was starting to get even better and it was over.
Conclusions
Martha is Dead is an absolutely fantastic game that earns 9/10 for me. The only reason I am giving this game a 9/10 is because I felt that it could have maybe been a bit longer, other than this it’s absolutely brilliant.
A code was kindly provided for us to review this.
