As the May 8 release date for the PS5 and PS VR2 title The Midnight Walk creeps ever closer, we grow more and more excited to experience this unique dark first-person adventure. Making its debut at State of Play late last year, the game showcased an incredible hand-crafted “cozy horror” world filled with deformed antiques, charming little freaks, and plenty of nightmare fuel. With the clock due to strike midnight very soon, we wanted to get another look at what the game will offer–and savor more of the game’s gorgeous stop-motion inspired visuals in the process. We sat down with its creator, Swedish studio Moonhood for a walk through a new section of the game.
Close your eyes to sense the world around you
You begin The Midnight Walk as The Burnt One, awakening in a makeshift grave you must extract yourself from. As you move down the winding road ahead and get your bearings, you learn a bit about how the world works: using matches to light fires and candles, sneaking about to escape the notice of threats, and finding and using items.
One of the most unique actions is closing your eyes to focus on hearing sounds you couldn’t sense normally–and sometimes change the environment when you open them again. On the flat screen version of the game, a button press and hold will increase the volume of important objects and dangers around you. The DualSense controller vibrates to indicate how close you are to an important object.
After your brief introductory trek, you’ll meet one of the other main figures: Potboy, a being with a stubby little body and a big, malformed head crowned by toasty fire. A touch from a lit match awakens him from his stasis, and he immediately flees in panic, hiding away in a large container. You’ll need to find and feed him some coal to earn his trust, and soon, you’re inseparable–well, you would be, if there weren’t so many creatures lurking in this dark world that feed upon light and fire and see Potboy as either a threat or a treat. You’re going to have to help each other out on your journey to the far-off Moon Mountain, which stands like a faraway monolith guiding you in the distance.
Meet a cast of brazier buddies
The lively, jauntily animated Pothead, being small and nimble, can squeeze into places and interact with the environment in ways the Burnt One can’t–but you’ll need to help guide him to the right spots. His flame can not only set objects alight, it also transforms parts of the landscape. Some elements, like flora, rebloom in vibrant life in response to the flame, while other obstacles dissipate or retract in apparent fear of the fire.
Much of the puzzle-solving will come from using Potboy in tandem with items or the environment in creative ways: one puzzle we were shown involved lighting a candle to lure a hungry foe away from Potboy so that he could hit some switches without fear of becoming dinner.
Eventually, you’ll meet Pothead’s friend Housy, a living abode that moves about on insect-like legs. Housy tags along on your journey and serves as a home base and collectible trove–and he looks fantastically freaky creeping along behind you. You can retreat to the safety of Housy’s insides at any time after your meeting, but you will have to go back outside eventually.
While much of The Midnight Walk pacing is relaxed, allowing you to fully savor this world’s murky, off-kilter atmosphere, you’ll still find plenty of sudden surprises that demand a rapid response. Be it a gang of crooked creatures chasing you and Potboy down a narrow path or the Molgrim — a huge cone-shaped, snaggle-toothed beast with a horrifying wail and an insatiable hunger — you’ll need to make some quick decisions to fight or flee. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor: hiding in a closet might throw a monster off your track, or sometimes just running for dear life is all you need. At other times you’ll need to make use of some tools–like the matchlock, that shoots matches at faraway candles and other contraptions. No matter what, you’ll always need to be alert, because danger is omnipresent and can strike when you least expect.
Let the night envelop you
Every moment in The Midnight Walk is full of intrigue. As you wander through dimly-lit, gnarled environments, you find yourself surrounded by objects that feel like an uneasy mix of the natural and the artificial, the direct result of the numerous real-life models and objects that the team at Moonhood have painstakingly scanned into the game and animated. “Shellphones” found throughout tell a story of a world that was once crafted and curated, now left seemingly to rot away. Even the characters that seem friendly–or, at least, not murderously aggressive– to you and Pothead have something “off” about them, like the citizens of Nobodyville whose bodies have long since been banished, leaving them as craniums with a distrust of limbed “Somebodys.”
While the game looks incredible on a normal setup, PS VR2 fully immerses you in the strange beauty of this world. Looking around and interacting with the environment is far more intuitive and immersive: for example, instead of using a button to close your eyes, you’ll be able to actually close your eyes to make use of hypersensory hearing or environment-altering power. This mechanic isn’t just used for listening. Finding “eye symbols” hidden across the world and “meditating” on them causes the environment – and sometimes monsters – to change…
Binaural sound makes every creak, flame, and roar feel more vibrant and powerful while letting you enjoy the beauty of the tense, haunting soundtrack. The developers at MoonHood were eager to tell us about how impressive the scenes we saw were on PS VR2, and we’re inclined to take their word for it. So get your matches and candles ready–you’re about to take the walk of your life.