The Midnight Walk review: like stepping into a Studio Laika animation

For a game about walking in the dark night, The Midnight Walk feels most notable for its light and warmth. That's probably why it could be best described as a 'cosy' horror adventure, which suits a wuss like myself just fine.

This still follows some conventions of modern horror games, in that there are monsters that you can't defeat but simply have to run and hide from, but it's only a small part of the experience.

The real appeal is being in developer MoonHood's beautifully hand-made world, consisting of more than 700 digitally scanned models that were hand-sculpted from clay and other real-world materials, and the strange, peculiar and sometimes charming inhabitants you encounter, all hoping to see the day again. (Read my interview with the creators to discover how The Midnight Walk was made.)

You play as the Burnt One, a mysterious entity who's physically putting their eyes and ears together when they awaken, who along with an adorably cursed sidekick called Potboy, will partake in this Midnight Walk to reach the summit of Moon Mountain.

Fire walk with me

Despite being in a world of perpetual night (although the game is short enough that you could feasibly finish it in an evening), it's wondrous looking up at the sky in The Midnight Walk to find that it's not pitch black. Indeed, there's often a tranquili atmosphere just like if you were to have a star-gazing stroll in the countryside - you'll even spot a few hand-crafted stars hanging up there too.

Light plays other important roles back on the ground of course, from a spectral light that guides your way to oversized matchsticks that help light up candles. But you'll find Potboy as your constant source of warmth, following you around like an obedient puppy whose ever-burning lantern on the top of his head light many things. Don't overlook his diminutive form though because there's enough fire within him to fully restore objects, such a giant's heart that's gone cold.

The characters you encounter in the episodic chapters on your way to Moon Mountain are just as memorable, often odd and with an underlying melancholy, sympathies that even extend to the monsters roaming these places.

For instance, one early monster called the Molgrim may be described as loathsome, and let's be honest, you wouldn't want him to catch you. Yet I also feel for it when I'm hiding from it only to see that it's been crying over one of its own who had been slain.

It's not completely a case of befriending the monsters though - some really are just horrifying as they charge towards you with their unsettling stop-motion animation. Fortunately, one of the mechanics to counter some of these threats is just to close your eyes, either by squeezing the left trigger or by actually physically closing your eyes when playing in VR.

Such an escape however won't work on the game's most nope-inducing creature called a Grinner, which I won't spoil too much. All that I will say is that, even though it moves slowly at first, you'll want to run and hide in the nearest closet. Naturally, the most nightmarish enemy also turns out to be the one that caused me to restart a checkpoint the most.

The Midnight Walk has an eye for detail

Fortunately, you can also safely admire MoonHood's handiwork by way of collectible models of the creatures you find during the game, along with other nuggets of lore presented through film reels and vinyl records. Rather than just a tab on a menu screen, these can all be physically interacted with back at your hub, a mobile house called Housy. It's a tactile experience whether in VR or on the TV but it's definitely a boon with the former when you can just hold a clay sculpture up close to inspect every detail and marking.

Some mechanics have been designed with VR in mind too (I'm playing on PSVR 2), such as the aforementioned ability to close your eyes. Some puzzles are designed around this, such as a fake barrier that disappears after closing your eyes, while having your eyes closed also heightens your hearing, which becomes important for tracking certain clues that aren't visible. The latter is however more effective when using headphones and enabling binaural sound rather than strictly having a VR headset.

Ironically, I did find some issues with playing in VR, sometimes to do with hand-tracking not going where it needed to be though my main issue was that sometimes the eye-tracking would mistake me for closing my eyes when I hadn't.

Sadly this is more of a personal issue than a technical one as I have also had similar eye-tracking related issues since day one of owning a PSVR2 headset. Fortunately, if you suffer from a similar predicament, then you can still disable gaze tracking in the options and just close your in-game eyes with the trigger.

While that's a slight damper on the whole immersive factor, this is still overall a terrific narrative experience regardless whether you play on a TV or in VR. As you and Potboy make it to the final stretch to Moon Mountain and the score reaches a soaring crescendo, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that it reaches the same emotional peaks as the ending in Journey.