The Midnight Walk review - a terrifying stop motion horror adventure

They might not be realistic but the graphics in The Midnight Walk are some of the most impressively creepy of the year, in this surreal new stop motion adventure.
Although it was not without its charms, we found South Of Midnight to be one of the more disappointing releases of the year. The bland and unoriginal gameplay was the main problem, but it was a real shame that the stop motion animation, used so prominently in the advertising, was only really evident in the cut scenes. The Midnight Walk does not suffer from that problem.
It's a weird coincidence that they both have midnight in their name but in terms of gameplay and story the two games have nothing in common. As the latest from the makers of the very good Lost In Random and the very nearly good Fe, The Midnight Walk is a lot less action based and its storytelling much more opaque,
In gameplay terms it's essentially a stealth puzzle game, played through a first person perspective in a surreal, and often terrifying, stop motion world. We'd like to explain what's going on in terms of the plot, but you're given very little clue at the start and trying to piece things together is all part of the fun.
The purposefully unclear intro describes you as The Burnt One, last survivor of the end of the world. The game is filled with references to fire, from giant boxes of matches, that you use to light giant candles, to the fact that monsters can be distracted while they eat the flames.
What this all means is not immediately clear, as you explore the surreal, forbidding world that looks like A Nightmare Before Christmas turned up to 11 (with other influences from Star War alumni Phil Tippet and his film Mad God). One of the only, literal, bright spots is a friendly little creature called Potboy, who has a flame burning in his head.
Potboy can be ordered to move to any nearby location, which is the basis of many of the puzzles, as you use him to light the way and interact with machinery and objects blocking your progress. The puzzles are mostly simple stuff, with switches to press and objects to collect, but there are a few clever ones and the difficulty seems appropriate given the nature of the game.
The other key gameplay element is avoiding patrolling monsters. These horrible creatures aren't realistic looking but since the whole game looks like some ultra creepy children's show they're actually scarier than just another zombie or demon.
You can't fight them – as a character you have no intrinsic abilities at all – so instead you distract them with fire, which only lasts a few seconds, and hide in wardrobes that are dotted about the landscape.
There are obvious comparisons to be made with Alien Isolation, but The Midnight Walk is much less freeform and, especially early on, avoiding the monsters is very contrived, as you tempt them down one path, jump in a wardrobe as they pass by, and exit stage left while they're not looking.
That's not to say it's not tense and exciting, but it's very obvious that the game has been made with VR in mind, and while that's welcome, given how little support the PlayStation VR2 has had, the narrow paths, linear progression, and slow movement speed all point to a game that has been calibrated for VR rather than normal play – even though the majority of people are only going to experience the latter.
This never becomes a serious problem, but the game does feel a little constrained by trying to be two things at once. If you do have PlayStation VR2 though it works an absolute treat and even uses eye-tracking to tell when your eyes are closed, which is a recurring theme as you close your eyes, either literally or at the press of a button, to open many of the closed doors before you or make objects appear.
Everything in the game was moulded in clay first and then scanned in to become a 3D object, and it shows. The art style is more abstract than South Of Midnight but the general effect is much more interesting and unpredictable, as it rides that uncanny line between cartoonish fantasy and nightmarish vision. More Trending
The setting may be left purposefully obscure at first, but the five main stories are fairly straightforward. They're as bleak as the art style but while occasionally touching they're not as profound as perhaps the developer imagined, so while they and the character of Potboy are engaging they don't elevate the game in quite the manner they needed to.
It is probably only a coincidence that two titles using stop motion have been released in such quick succession, but it's an excellent way for games to stand out and a large part of the appeal is that The Midnight Walk doesn't look like anything else around, including South Of Midnight.
Good graphics don't make for good games, and The Midnight Walk certainly would be a lot less interesting if it had a more realistic style, but it doesn't. So while it's overly expensive for an eight hour adventure you can still add this to the year's encouragingly long list of high quality and fiercely unusual indie oddities.
In Short: One of the most visually distinctive games of the year, that proves you don't need realism or gore to be scary – in this enjoyable mix of stealth, puzzle-solving, and surreal horror.
Pros: The visual style is consistently great and often genuinely scary. Some clever puzzles and the stealth elements are extremely tense. Excellent use of VR, if you have it.
Cons: It's a bit too obvious the game was designed with VR in mind, with very narrow paths and uncomplicated layouts. Stealth gameplay doesn't evolve much over the course of the game. Not very long.
Score: 7/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed) and PCPrice: £32.99Publisher: Fast Travel GamesDeveloper: MoonHoodRelease Date: 8th May 2026
Age Rating: 16
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