Martha Is Dead

Intensely immersive and thought-provoking psychological horror.

I will compare it to two titles. First, this game is superficially extremely similar to LKA's previous release, The Town of Light. Both games explore madness associated with sexual promiscuity and volatile mother-daughter relationships in the context of World War II fascism, and both take place in a building surrounded by rural nature in Italy. In many ways Martha Is Dead can be understood as a remake and a rewrite of Town of Light, a new attempt to tackle the same topic. Indeed it feels quite different: Martha's plot occurs during the descent, not after it, and is far more visceral and immediate. It wants you to be inside the deeply troubled mind of the protagonist, and not just to observe it as was the case in Town of Light.

I would also compare this game to Guillermo del Toro's film, Pan's Labyrinth. There, too, is an attempt at penetrating the trauma of life under fascism through the psychotic fantasies of a young woman. But in this comparison Martha falls short as it ambitiously forwards an unconvincing equivalence between the Nazis and the Italian Partisans, portraying them as indistinguishable twin siblings emerging from mutual trauma. It's an interesting academic exercise, but it's not unproblematic to portray sympathy towards Nazis. Unfortunately, Martha's writing isn't deft enough to deal with this challenge and disturbingly dangling questions remain as to what it says or fails to say about Nazism.

The writing is also not deft enough to deal constructively with mental illness. It seems that Sony forced LKA to include warnings and triggers, and so like in a lot of "psychological horror" the beams get crossed. On the one hand we are asked to treat sickness with sympathy and respect. On the other hand the game gratuitously sensationalizes and even glorifies it for our entertainment. Let's be honest: horror is not the right genre to tackle mental illness. So, don't even try, because the result is always accompanied by insincerity.

Let's talk about what works. The visual design is gorgeous. Play with raytracing if you can and lose yourself in this idyllic, atmospheric countryside cottage by a lake. Much of the game is about taking photos and developing them in a dark room, and the attention to the details of the process is delightful. There are also telegraph decryption and tarot reading mini-games that are likewise satisfyingly detailed without being tedious. What works less well is the quest design. Some poorly placed cues and map bugs make it seem like you're supposed to go looking for things when you can't, or they point you in the wrong direction. The Town of Light suffered from this, too, so it's definitely something LKA needs to work on.

Writing is also hit and miss. Some poorly edited scenes diminish the grandeur of the best ones. And the voice acting, at least in English, is somewhat mediocre. It doesn't seem like the actors were getting proper direction, if at all.

Despite the flaws, the sum totality of this game's storytelling is devastating. I won't soon forget what I saw and will continue to second guess myself as to what really happened.