Against all the odds,the Silent Hill 2 remakelaunched to rave reviews from critics and fans alike, praising Bloober Team’s modern interpretation despite the dread we’ve all been feeling sincethat first announcement in 2022. I never in a million years expected to write those words in that order, but it’s amazing to see how quickly skepticism has turned into fervent excitement.
However, there’s another psychological horror available right now that you should pay attention to this spooky season —Mouthwashing.
Set aboard a shipwrecked space freighter, this indie gem follows the gradual breakdown of an entire crew after they discover that they have risked their lives, drifting through the void, to deliver a warehouse full of mouthwash. There are no monsters, zombies, oraliens crawling through the ducts, ready to rip your throat out unless you hold your breath in the closet, just a crew on the brink.
It opens with you in the cockpit, desperately attempting to stop the ship from crashing. But your efforts are futile. No matter what you do, you will inevitably find yourself trapped in the endless black nothing that is space, waiting for rescue while the crew’s small stock of supplies begins to run out.
The innocuous mundanity of running a ship broken up by morbidly beautiful nightmare sequences unfolding within Captain Curly’s mind are an incredible snapshot of what’s to come. Trapped indoors for months on end with nothing more than a giant monitor displaying the sun to tell the time, the claustrophobia shatters all sense of reality and causes the crew to disassociate completely.
The game even bakes this into its UI/UX, as opening your inventory sometimes causes a ‘crash’ that bleeds into the next segment.
The loose sense of continuity throughout the narrative perfectly compliments the broken minds of the crew, as we jump back and forth between the calm before the storm and the aftermath of the crash. Watching a beautiful, digital sunset, only to see that same giant monitor lit up in red warnings, with an axe firmly wedged in its center moments later, does an amazing job at immersing you in the crew’s despair.
The puzzles are simple, and outside of one segment towards the end, there’s no combat. Mouthwashing instead uses the video game medium to bring you into its world on a far more personal level, placing you in the shoes of a crew at their limit, drunk on mouthwash waiting for help that might never come.
There is some truly profound imagery despite the relatively small area we find ourselves trapped in for most of the game, as developer Wrong Organ makes the cramped ship feel varied with lighting, debris, and hallucinations that transform corridors into hellish labyrinths. It’s cramped, but it always feels minty fresh.
Mouthwashing is a beautiful game, easily among the best horrors of this decade so far. At just two hours with a $10 price tag, I can’t recommend it enough. Silent Hill 2 Remake is an exciting return for a survival horror all-time classic, but ensure you leave room for this new indie triumph. It encapsulates exactly why video games are a perfect medium for psychological horror in a way that few other games can match.
Mouthwashing
WHERE TO PLAY
Mouthwashing is a first-person horror game following the dying crew of a shipwrecked space freighter.Who could have known what good ol’ Captain Curly was capable of? Guess he thought his crew dying alongside him was only right. But some men can’t even kill themselves properly. Maimed, limbless and unable to speak, but alive, Curly is now at the mercy of the crew he has doomed to a slow death.Descend into MadnessFollow the lives of the crew as they weather starvation, isolation, and each other. People were never your strong suit anyway.Zero Chance of RescueThe ship will run out of power within six months. Food rations long before that.Immersive StorytellingPay attention to your surroundings.Psychological ScaresYour eyes are lying.Unforgiving NarrativeHope to die, or for goodness sake, pray that everyone else did.
