Martha Is Dead Review

Synopsis: Martha Is Dead is a dark first-person psychological thriller, set in 1944 Italy, that blurs the lines between reality, superstition and the tragedy of war.

Publisher: Wired Productions
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Also available for: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Cast [Italian]: Joy Saltarelli, Flaminia Fegarotti, Udo Kier, Marta Altinier
[English]: Annie Warburton, Honor Davis-Pye, Tegen Hitchens, Udo Kier, Victoria Watkins

Developer: LKA
Director: Luca Dalco
Story Creator & Writer: Luca Dalco
Lead Game Design: Luca Dalco
Technical Director: Alessio Belli
Composers: Davide Terreni (Aseptic Void), Francesca Messina (Femina Ridens)

I have not had a good time with Martha is Dead at all. The number of bugs, crashes, and weird game design issues has marred any good ideas within. I kept playing — even while dealing with constant messages that my save file was corrupted — because I was intrigued to see how everything would come together in the final act, but it wasn’t worth the effort. This is a game that thinks it’s telling a heightened psychological narrative, but when you take a moment to look at everything, there’s little here.

The narrative ideas here are fascinating, and with the 1944 Italian setting, there’s plenty of intrigue in the first hour, even if things are slow-moving. Giulia finds her twin sister, Martha, dead in the lake near their home. In the moments following, as her parents race down the hill to see what’s happened, Giulia can’t help but stay silent, so her mother assumes that it was Giulia who was found dead, as Martha is deaf. In the days following, unable to tell her mother the truth, especially as Martha was the beloved of the two daughters, Giulia doesn’t explain the reality of who’s passed away. She begins to live life as her sister, with no plan of how to break, or if she would ever, the facade.

Martha is Dead explores mental health and a sister’s psyche as she begins to wear her sister’s skin figuratively. With that said, one thing worth mentioning about Martha is Dead is the differences between the PlayStation version of the game compared to PC and Xbox. It’s been in the news the last couple of weeks, but yes, PlayStation required a couple of scenes to be modified. They still exist in the game the same on every platform as far as the content is concerned, but these two short sequences are not interactive on PlayStation. One early scene is a dream sequence in which Giulia cuts off Martha’s face to wear it. This is a cutscene on PlayStation, whereas on other platforms, players press a couple of button prompts to perform the sequence. The difference is minimal, and ultimately the intention of the scene remains intact for narrative and thematic purposes.

In the days following Martha’s death and the lead up to her funeral, you’ll explore the family home and seek to discover how Martha died. Giulia believes her sister could have fallen victim to ‘The White Lady,’ a ghost tale told to her by her nanna. There’s a handful of miscellaneous quests, some of which play with the 1940’s WW2 backdrop in somewhat interesting ways, especially as the German and allied forces conflict is reaching the Tuscany home.

A big focus point for Martha Is Dead has been the default Italian voice cast to get “full immersion.” I played the game like this the entire time, and although the voice cast was fine, it was often hard to concentrate on doing something while reading the subtitles. A difference between games and movies/TV exists in this regard. However, it wouldn’t matter what language you heard the cast in, as so much text and unskippable exposition or monologuing happen throughout the game; it becomes an utter bore to sit through them all. Between the chapters, you’ll have to stare at a black screen as text appears and Giulia goes over the recent events that have transpired. And there’s so much of this, read so slowly. I zoned out constantly as I could read the text ten times faster than the character would be speaking. However, nothing could be as dull as the two puppet shows at the back end of the game. There’s an illusion you control the characters, but these segments put me to sleep. You have an illusion of control over them with several buttons for controlling what the characters can do, but you cannot.

One thing I did enjoy in Martha Is Dead was the photography and the original music. Although taking the photos at times can be painful, I appreciated you could take pictures of everything in the world, unlock new filters and lenses, and then develop the film as a relatively painless mini-game. Using the photos to help discover what happened to Martha and in a side quest to track down a ghostly apparition was where the game was at its best.

There’s a much better game here if it focused on the photography mechanics, trauma exploration and ghost stories. Instead, it’s a game bogged down in many different directions. I don’t think this game, much like developer LKA’s last game, Town of Light, handles mental health in the best way, but there’s a somewhat interesting story here. It’s just so boring to get through. But I will not forget my experience with Martha Is Dead for the rest of the year. I can’t remember any other game crashing on me as much and featuring as many weird technical bugs; causing me to leave the game suspended for three days as the constant messaging about my save files being corrupted left me in fear they’d be gone forever if I closed it.

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