I’ve had a fascination with claymation ever since I was a kid. Movies like Coraline, The Adventures of Mark Twain and The Nightmare Before Christmas told beautiful stories while also terrifying me with their creepy imagery. I’ve always wished for a video game to successfully capture what made those films so memorable to me. The Midnight Walk not only fulfilled that wish, it may be my favorite piece of claymation media ever made.
Protector of the Flame
You play as The Burnt One in The Midnight Walk, a being whose sole purpose is to protect entities known as “Pot Boys” as they make their journey to Moon Mountain in order to reignite the sun. You will also be accompanied by Housy, a small walking cottage, that will serve as a base for all of your collectibles as well as a vehicle to travel through certain areas.
Together the three of you will travel down The Midnight Walk, the name given to the route to Moon Mountain, and encounter a wide cast of memorable characters and locations. You’ll stumble across a village of “Nobodies”, decapitated heads who are being terrorized by a monster called a Molgrim, an old coal mining town that is cursed for what they did to a thief years before and a city created by a mourning giant.
Each of these locations have a self-contained story that feeds into the rich history of the world of The Midnight Walk and reveal complex relationships and choices of those who came before you. The characters who live in these locations all breathe life into them and ooze personality. I found myself instantly becoming engrossed in each and every one of these NPCs and wanted to keep venturing forward to figure out exactly who they are and their story. Even though I didn’t get every answer to all my questions by the time the credits rolled, I was moved to tears with my conclusion and left more than satisfied.
Despite the overarching feeling of dread and sadness present through The Midnight Walk, I was pleasantly surprised by how funny the game could be. This mix of humor and horror is incredibly difficult to pull off, but they straddle the line perfectly throughout the game. I did manage to platinum the game within 8 hours, which some may scoff at for the $40 price tag. However, I found the game to be the perfect length for what it is trying to do and that extending the game time would only have bloated the whole experience. In my opinion, The Midnight Walk is well worth its price of admission.
The Midnight Walk is An Artistic Tour de Force
The first thing many will be captured by with The Midnight Walk is its stunning visuals and art direction. Each time I met a new character I would exhaust all of their dialogue and observe their every movement, admiring the absolute craftmanship in their design. You can tell the team at MoonHood put their heart and soul into this game and it comes through in every detail.
The environments are every bit as awe-inspiring as the characters. Every asset seems specifically placed and made to exist solely where it is rather than being reused from another location. I would walk through a town and see the remnants of the past lives of those who walked the streets before me. I could feel the walls closing in on me when descending into a pitch black cavern, with the only light coming from my lit match.
The cherry on top is the absolutely phenomenal voice work and music present here. The relatively small voice cast more than pull their weight and breathe life into each character, giving them a distinct personality and sense of being. The Moonbird’s devilish raspy voice sent shivers down my spine anytime she would appear and the soothing rough voice of The Soulfisher made me feel warm and welcomed when I would walk up to one of his fires along the road.
The music by Joel Billie sets the mood perfectly for each locale and knows when to pull at the heartstrings during emotional moments. The use of audio ques and environmental sound, which is very important in this game, filled me with tension during every enemy encounter leaving me second guessing going around a corner or walking through a doorway. I don’t know if I have ever seen a game knock it out of the park on every level artistically as The Midnight Walk. It is truly a labor of love that excels in almost every regard.
A Dangerous Journey
As much as I’ve gushed over the story and artistic direction of The Midnight Walk, it is also a joy to play… mostly. The puzzles you’ll encounter never get overly complicated to the point where you will find yourself banging your head against a wall trying to discover the solution, and mostly revolve around how to get Pot Boy to a certain candle so he can light it. Besides the candle puzzles, you will also have to find keys and other items hidden in the environment in order to proceed. How you find these items is where The Midnight Walk is truly unique.
At any point you can hold L1 (or just close your eyes if playing in VR) and The Burnt One will close his eyes and focus on listening to the sounds around you. Certain items will make a sound that you can then turn to focus on and locate. This mechanic is very fun, and surprisingly scary, to use. Often you will have to close your eyes to locate an object while being stalked by a monster leaving yourself vulnerable to being snuck up on. I did find that you didn’t have to use this too often and could find most items by just being thorough when exploring an area. It’s a great way to build tension and very clever system that I wish they leaned on more in the game.
Where the gameplay suffers a bit is in its stealth segments. I’ve never been a huge fan of stealth mechanics in games, so I found myself being frustrated a couple times when the game forced me to have to move through an area without being seen. There is a particularly annoying segment where being spotted leads to an instant game over that I did not enjoy. After a couple tries I figured out how to get through it relatively easily, but I hate segments like this in games where just being seen leads to having to return to a checkpoint.
You do receive a matchgun early on in the game that you can use to briefly stun an enemy chasing you down, but besides this there is no way to fight back during enemy encounters. Instead, the matchgun is primarily used to solve puzzles by finding the right angle to shoot at candles or ignite certain objects Pot Boy can’t reach. It’s a fun little toy to play around with and adds just enough variety to some puzzles.
Each chapter also has a decent amount of collectibles to discover that either add lore to characters, unlock music to listen to in Housy or even movie reels that when fully collected tell a tale that could give some meaningful insight into the world. These add a little bit of replay value to the experience and also add depth to the story that you’ll miss if you are blazing through the chapters.
An Outstanding Debut
To say my expectations were blown away by The Midnight Walk would be an understatement. I found myself fully immersed into the world and didn’t want to leave when the credits rolled. I just sat in silence contemplating what I just played through. Rarely do I find games like MoonHood’s debut. Its story of finding the good in dark times and the connections we make in life resonated with me and will stick with me for a long time.
With The Midnight Walk, MoonHood has proven they are a studio to keep an eye on. Whatever project they make next, whether it is a follow up to The Midnight Walk or a completely new IP, I will be one of the first in line to get my hands on it.
The Midnight Walk is available on PlayStation 5, PS VR2 and PC.
Disclaimer: MoonHood provided a PlayStation 5 copy of The Midnight Walk to Final Weapon for review purposes.
