Developer: LKA

Distributor: Wired Productions
Release Date: February 24, 2022
Platforms: PlayStation / Xbox / PC (reviewed)
Rating: MA (seriously MA)
Price: $29.99

Martha Is Dead is a horror story and is not appropriate for everyone. I should add the developer isn’t making any secrets about this either. So consider this what the kids call a “trigger warning” for violence, self-harm and “holy crap I cannot believe they thought that was a good idea.”

Hi I’m Giulia, I have more than three problems.

LKA’s Martha is Dead is a first-person psychological thriller that in some ways shows just how far “video games” have come as a medium since their inception. It's more like a film than a game in many ways.

Your literal descent into madness begins with your POV character Giulia, an Italian girl with more than three problems. As Giulia, you have some control of your decisions and movement as well as the mouse-driven ability to look around. This can be a bit cumbersome, but the game gives you a bit more control than similar titles and the detailed environment gives the viewer (yes, viewer not player) plenty of detail to examine. Your choices actually change the progression of the story, adding some replay value, which is unusual for this sort of title. There is nothing groundbreaking, but LKA does seem to at least be aware of the potential of the medium and manages to give you more to do than wonder if they are trying to kill you by forcing you to click the mouse until you die of carpal tunnel.

The story, set in wartime Tuscany, begins at some indeterminate point in the future where we meet Giulia, who begins telling her tale with her childhood, listening to her nanny telling a dark fairy tale. It gets moving with the murder and uh… desecration of Giulia’s twin sister named (wait for it) Martha. Her killing is strangely consistent with the fairy tale, introducing a supernatural element. Determined to find Martha’s killer and win favor from their abusive mother, Giulia adopts Martha’s identity sending her down a very dark path, which becomes darker and increasingly convoluted as the story progresses. The wartime setting and the detail of her German father being a Gestapo Officer adds an interesting political dimension to Martha’s murder. This is an excellent choice of historical timing as by the games 1944 setting, Italy was more battleground than combatant. As the wartime situation and Giulia’s mental state decline, layer after layer is added to the madness.

I am Mr Camera, we will “document” things

To avoid spoilers, I’m going to leave the story there but the story falls into the same traps a lot of suspense titles can’t seem to avoid. It relies too much on M. Night Shyamalan style twists and Giulia’s mental state and resulting questionable narration to drive the story. The multiple layers of madness also make determining what is actually occurring difficult for the viewer. This is defensible as it is a tale of madness, but there is a fine line between suspense, confusion and wondering if the author has gotten into the wine cellar.

There is also a Sony shaped elephant in the room. Sony was unhappy with the graphic nature of the story and required a censored (cough) modified version to be created before allowing the title on PlayStation. The game allows you to disfigure bodies and partake in dramatic recreations of domestic abuse and self-harm. The necessity of this is subjective, but my impression is that at least some of this was simply included for shock value, which I find a poor substitute for storytelling. That said, LKA has not been shy with content warnings, so I’ll file that under “Someone else’s problem.”

Bottom-line Martha is Dead is a beautiful and innovative title that succeeds in pushing the boundaries of its medium. It twists and turns and switches from Idyllic to horrific and is a good choice for psychological horror fans.

The Good:

Excellent Graphics, animation and sound.
Pushes the limits of the medium.
More replay value than is typical.

The Bad:

Story needs polish.
Needlessly gory.
Spendy for what you get.

Martha is Dead (PC) Review