The Mortuary Assistant: Definitive Edition [PlayStation 5] | REVIEW

After spooking gamers on PC and the Nintendo Switch over the last couple of years, The Mortuary Assistant has now made its way to PlayStation and Xbox platforms in the form of the Definitive Edition, bringing with it extra content to flesh out the eerie experience.

Check out some screenshots down below:

The Mortuary Assistant puts players in the role of Rebecca, who, if the name of the game doesn’t give it away, takes on the role of a mortuary assistant in River Fields Mortuary. The place itself has a bit of a spooky reputation, which is something you find out quite quickly when you find yourself on the night shift and dark and disturbing events start to occur. It turns out that there’s a demonic presence within the River Field Mortuary and you’re wrapped up with it. The only way you’ll survive your shift is to keep doing your job, but with twisted and terrifying events occurring around you, you’re in for a long night.

You might be wondering how vanquishing a demon threat might tie into working as a mortuary assistant, but the game takes a clever approach to proceedings that makes everything click into place. See, a random demon will possess you during your shift, which will slowly make you lose your sanity and start to see dark things occurring around you. This could be a terrifying figure watching over you, an eerie sequence of changes occurring in the environment, or even the game UI altering to throw you off, with the game doing a LOT of clever things that’ll leave you with a feeling of unease and that something scary is about to happen. I constantly found myself on edge when playing, whilst I don’t want to admit how many times I shrieked when something caught me off-guard, so yeah, it’s certainly a menacing experience.

So how do you stop this demonic threat? Well, the demonic presence is linked to one of three bodies in the mortuary, and if you want to stop it, you’ll have to burn the right body whilst identifying the demon. You’ll still have to embalm each body and go through all of the phases involved in the process (which is surprisingly satisfying in a dark and disturbing way), but you’ll also be performing more unique tasks that’ll help you figure out which body is corrupted by the demon. Fortunately, there’ll be clues to find around you in the office to help you out, whilst you can also use the computer to find out even more details about each demon that might help make life a little easier.

“The Mortuary Assistant is a unique and disturbing horror experience that’ll keep players on the edge of their seat as they try to unravel the demonic threat.”

Honestly? You’ll probably fail on your first attempt, with The Mortuary Assistant offering multiple endings to endure until you finally succeed and see off the demonic threat. I managed to succeed on my fourth attempt, and with each shift lasting a couple of hours, it can easily take around seven-to-eight hours to beat the game depending on how successful you are.

It felt like the ideal length, because it can be a little bit repetitive embalming bodies over and over on each shift you play in the game. Whilst there are enough variations to the process to keep things interesting (especially with the scares and differing demons you can find yourself facing off against), you’ll still find yourself doing the same things over and over. I hadn’t grown tired of it by the time I finally succeeded, but if I had to do another run? The loop might have worn a little thin, even if the constant surprises with the random scary events were well executed.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy my time with the game though, because The Mortuary Assistant is definitely one of the more unique and entertaining horror titles that I’ve played. The setting and whole process of embalming the bodies never stopped feeling unsettling, whilst the tension of knowing that something spooky could happen at any moment genuinely played on my nerves as I performed even the most menial of tasks. And when something unexpected does happen? You’ll jump out of your skin. I don’t want to spoil any of the scares here, but The Mortuary Assistant is definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Check out some screenshots down below:

However, whilst I had a really good time with game, it is worth noting that the console port isn’t quite perfect. Whilst manageable, the controls can be clunky and can take some getting used to, especially when performing precise actions or handling your inventory. Some of the visuals could be a little sketchy too, with the occasional low-quality texture or visual glitch found when playing. Whilst I didn’t come across any game-breaking issues, these were still noticeable flaws that will hopefully get fixed over time.

I can’t end this reviewing without reiterating that this is the Definitive Edition of the game, meaning it comes with additional scary sequences, a mode dedicated entirely to embalming (for those who just want to deal with gross actions and no scares), a Valentines Day-focused seasonal event, and more minor improvements. Admittedly, some of these are more likely to be appreciated by those who had already played the game before, but it’s nice to know that it’s packed with content to flesh out the experience.

Developer: DarkStone Digital
Publisher: DreadXP
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295920/The_Mortuary_Assistant/