Massacre at the Mirage Review: Delightful Fright at the Cinema

What do you do when an unpredictable horror shows up at your doorstep? Massacre at the Mirage investigates that premise by throwing a mix of predictable horror and unexpected gore at you. With a crazy killer stalking multiple characters you control, it’s promising to be a bloody night for everyone involved. Even with the danger rising, could there be hope for everyone involved? Will the targets escape with their lives?

Massacre at the Mirage presents a chilling tale of horror that could seemingly happen to anyone. The jump scares are plentiful and are well-timed to instill fear in your heart. The story is predictable and you likely know what will happen after the prologue. It’s also too dark at times even outside of the story’s needs. Even if you do know what’s coming, the horror is still worth experiencing for yourself especially if you need a scare.

Massacre at the Mirage is available on PC for USD 9.99.

Most of your time is spent serving customers while you view the horror.

Story – Some Crazy Clown

The story is split among multiple characters experiencing a Halloween evening. Nothing seems out of place except for some strange ice cream truck that drives by. Once you hear the ice cream truck, that’s when strange things happen. Lights start to flicker, objects are destroyed, and a strange clown appears in your view. It seems like a regular Halloween scare at first until the blood starts to flow.

It feels like a simple set up similar to Jack Holmes: Master of Puppets, but doesn’t overstretch its premise. This is a creepy story about a murderous being hunting down innocent people on Halloween. While there are some supernatural elements to the story, this doesn’t take away from the main premise. All you know as the player is that something creepy is going on and you wonder who will make it out alive.

Something is clearly wrong and you know how characters will react.

Focusing on the premise is smart because it instills hope in the player. Maybe everyone will survive the night. Perhaps the death toll won’t rise. It’s possible one character will make a smart move that saves everybody. There are no unnecessary elements or attempts to further develop the story. The story never strays from its premise, keeping the focus on the horror evoked by the events.

What assists the story is the simple gameplay that immerses you into the horror. There’s nothing more frightening than something unusual happening when everything is normal. It also highlights the characters you play. To them, it is nothing more than just a slightly creepier Halloween. But to the player, you know something bad will happen because nothing stays ordinary.

Approaching the clown is a bad idea but you must do it anyway.

Gameplay – Regular Activities on Halloween

Similar to The Mortuary Assistant, you control various characters as they go about their day. Whether it’s making sure customers get snacks at the movie theatre or organising a radio show, your activities are ordinary. What makes them extraordinary is that you are performing them while some crazy clown is looking at you. There’s also the occasional ice cream truck that drives by, letting you know that something isn’t quite right.

You have clear instructions on what your tasks are and any mini-games are easy to figure out. It would be nice if there were more obvious indicators for objectives since the game can be dark. Thankfully, time is on your side and you don’t have to rush. Some of the scares in the game rely on you inspecting something that is out of place. You might even have to look around at a perfectly normal setting.

Customers have different snack requests and you must find them all.

What makes Massacre at the Mirage stand out is the naturally placed jump scares. They don’t always rely on the obscene or grotesque to startle you. Instead, it could just be turning your head to the left at the right time. This makes the scare feel natural, like how you would feel when you hear a loud noise. This heightens the horror because everything feels scary and you are afraid to continue.

Audio & Visual – Darkness With Normality

Massacre at the Mirage relies on looking as normal as possible. While the graphics aren’t the most realistic, they still evoke the feeling of normality. This hones in on the inherent horror in the setting; this could happen anywhere. There are some supernatural elements to the design but a majority of the setting could easily be found in common locations. Even the human characters don’t look out of place. The only unnerving aspect is the crazy clown.

The clown comes out of nowhere, making it that much scarier.

The only downside is that the areas can be extremely dark. This isn’t related to situations where the lights are out, but areas that almost blend in with the darkness. A good example is the break room door inside the radio station. If you aren’t sure where to look, you might think it’s just another wall. Having better indications of objectives or some guidance would help because otherwise people end up getting unnecessarily lost.

Listening to the sounds in-game is almost non-existent outside of radios in the buildings. It’s silent apart from some jump scares and surprises. This heightens the fear because it almost feels like a regular day, but that normalcy is shattered by a jump scare. It’s something the game does well without relying on creepy ambient noise; you fill in the blanks yourself when the surprises occur.

The voice acting can be hit-or-miss though. Some voices sound good but others could use some improvement. Everything is decent in the game but you do feel that better voice acting could take the game further. But it’s something that you can excuse since there are several unique characters that have many speaking lines.

Massacre at the Mirage was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by Vicarious PR.