And I mean that in the best possible way.
Image credit: Eurogamer/Akupara Games
Michelle is in a bit of a rut. Her social life is nowhere. Her apartment’s a mess, and she’s still reeling from a big messy breakup with her ex-girlfriend that happened three years ago. To top it all off, her neighbours are arguing very loudly in her apartment building’s hallway. Time to hit the hay, she thinks, hoping that tomorrow will be a little less gloomy.
Unfortunately for Michelle, her day is about to go from bad to worse, as during the night, a hot pink demon storms in through her door wearing nothing but jet-black thigh-high boots, and professes she wants nothing more than Michelle’s undying love and devotion. I mean, I get that gods are meant to be worshipped and all that, but this is coming on a bit strong, no?
So begins the exquisite Steam Next Fest demo for upcoming horror shooter Sorry We’re Closed, a game that looks and feels like the greatest hits of Resident Evil, combining fixed camera angles and chunky pixel art with tense, first-person shooting, slashed through with the fantastical punk sensibilities of Paradise Killer. It’s an intoxicating mix, and a demo experience that’s well worth dipping into ahead of the game’s full release next month.
You see, despite this demon intruder being rather dismayed that you aren’t really into their toothy red whale maw, they do bestow you with a natty third eye to help you fight the legions of hell that are about to pour through a portal on your apartment building’s rooftop. Shaken by the whole ordeal, Michelle goes upstairs to investigate and suddenly finds herself in an old London tube station, its grungy interior haunted by remnants of two souls locked in a fierce, ethereal argument. One of them is holding a very real axe that looks like it’s been shaped out of a cursed wolf head, and yep, I want that right now please, that looks brilliant.
Before you’re able to prize it out of their ghostly grasp, however, there’s the small matter of your mate Robyn who’s standing nearby. She’s also a demon in disguise, it turns out, and she’s investigating why your new pink bestie has decided to haunt your flat all of a sudden. In order to help you solve this strange predicament, you’ll both need to get back to reality first, and in classic video game fashion, the only way forward is through. So it’s up and over the turnstiles you go, down into the bowels of what proves to be a real nightmarish kind of commute.
But this is a London underground hellscape that feels so wonderfully and grimly British in its design that I swear some of its locations have been directly scraped from my own subconscious, back when I used to work in London full-time. I feel like I’ve been in this tube station, or at least some version of it anyway, though the grotesque inhabitants of Sorry We’re Closed certainly weren’t there before, and I don’t have that handy third eye that lets me see them in all their horrible glory either. With an achingly cool click of her fingers, Michelle can open her third eye at any time, bathing her immediate surroundings in a searing pink halo and conjuring any hazy apparitions into full and vivid life.
That arguing frozen couple I mentioned earlier? Activate your third eye around them, and the axe-wielding woman will lurch into existence, allowing you to watch the scene play out in ‘real life’. As she squelches the poor bloke in front of her, she too mentions a kind of love curse, but her solution seems to be literally throwing money at the problem, and she robs the poor bloke blind. You’ll catch up with her again later in the demo, though thankfully she does leave that brilliant little axe behind to give you your first melee weapon.
The really neat thing about Sorry We’re Closed, though, is how its combat shifts perspective, casting you into first-person whenever you want to wield your gun, axe or whatever else you have to hand. Attacking also roots you to the spot, giving every encounter a frisson of nervous and flinching tension, because while you’re free to shoot enemies from afar, their specific weak points will only reveal themselves once they cross the boundary of your third eye halo – and with ammo being quite scarce throughout, you’ll want to let them get up close and personal as much as possible to conserve supplies. It’s a great conceit, and one that really puts your resolve through the wringer over the course of its 30-minute demo.
Michelle’s third eye also pulls double duties as a navigational tool, as some obstacles present in the demon world aren’t there in the ‘real’ world and vice versa, so you’ll need to switch between them frequently to pick your way through the station. Puzzle items follow a similar pattern, too, scratching that Resident Evil part of your brain even further as you pick locks and find the right keys across different dimensions. It’s all so fabulously stylish in its execution, too, and it left me wanting more as I piled Michelle into the final awaiting tube carriage that would take her to her next destination at the demo’s conclusion. I’m so looking forward to picking up her journey when Sorry We’re Closed comes out in full next month, so here’s hoping there are no last-minute delays to its expected arrival time.
