Midnight Murder Club Review

Compared to other PlayStation-published games, Midnight Murder Club has flown under the radar. Initially released earlier this year in early access, Midnight Murder Club stands out for two key reasons. One, it's primarily an online multiplayer game that doesn't have much in the way of live-service elements, and two, it's an FPS where the action takes place in a spooky pitch-black mansion.

Midnight Murder Club's defining characteristic is how its map is shrouded in darkness whenever players put their flashlights away. This creates an interesting dynamic where players have to choose between keeping their flashlights on to see where they're going but potentially exposing their location to their opponents or turning their flashlights off and hiding in the dark. The fact that players can be killed with one hit increases the intensity and makes every encounter that much more nerve-wracking. There are certainly some laughs to be had from this interesting setup, especially when playing with a group of friends. Luckily, Midnight Murder Club makes grouping up with friends a breeze, despite the fact that it's not free-to-play.

Instead of going the free-to-play route, Midnight Murder Club costs $9.99. Even at such a low price, it can be difficult to convince friends to take the plunge on a new multiplayer game, but Midnight Murder Club completely eliminates that hurdle. A purchase of Midnight Murder Club makes it possible for players to host up to five of their friends in the game free of charge. Midnight Murder Club Guest Pass players can access every bit of content that the owner of the game can, which is a nice touch and should make getting a group together to play the game online much easier.

Midnight Murder Club Randoms Ruin the Experience

The problem is Midnight Murder Club doesn't have much to keep players engaged long-term. While the game is a blast at first, it gets dull quickly thanks to a lack of compelling progression, only having one map, and the nightmare that is playing with random teammates/opponents online. If you can get a full lobby of people you know, you're going to have a lot more fun with Midnight Murder Club, but if the plan is to rely on random people to fill up your lobby through matchmaking, you're better off playing anything else. Nearly every single game I played online had at least one person leaving, which threw off the team sizes, made it even more difficult to find opponents on the map, and generally sucked the fun out of the experience.

Midnight Murder Club has a bigger problem with leavers than any online multiplayer game I have played in recent memory. My only guess is that people leave when the lobby votes on a match type they don't want, which is something that could be solved with more traditional playlists. When playing with strangers online, Midnight Murder Club doesn't let players choose the mode they want to play directly. Instead, they vote on the mode they want to play, and the vast majority of the time, it seems Wildcards wins.

Midnight Murder Club's Wildcards mode is essentially Deathmatch, but with a twist. In it, players choose from a selection of cards that they've earned from their matches to dramatically shake up the gameplay. One of the more amusing cards makes it so everyone in the match shrinks down to doll size, while others are a bit more useful, like one that makes flashlight beams larger. The random chaos of the cards makes Wildcards the most unpredictable and hilarious game mode in Midnight Murder Club, so it's no surprise it's so popular, but that means anyone interested in playing the other match types is mostly out of luck if they don't have enough friends to put together a private lobby.

Besides Wildcards, other Midnight Murder Club match types include the standard Free for All and Team Deathmatch, as well as Thief in the Night and Headhunters. Thief in the Night has players collecting and banking treasures hidden around the mansion, while Headhunters is an objective-based mode where one team tries to destroy totems and the other works to defend them. The modes can all be fun with the right group of friends, but they all suffer from one big issue.

Midnight Murder Club only has one map, and it's too big. While the size of the Midnight Murder Club mansion makes the game tense and funny at first, it doesn't take long for it to wear out its welcome. Stumbling around the mansion in the dark looking for someone to shoot becomes tedious because of how big the map is, meaning there are too many lulls in the action. People actually utilizing Midnight Murder Club's proximity chat functionality make the big map more tolerable, but it was hard to find a full lobby of people using mics in my experience.

Midnight Murder Club's PvE Co-Op Mode is a Dud

PvP is Midnight Murder Club's main selling point, but there is also a 2-player PvE mode called Graveyard Shift. Unfortunately, Graveyard Shift is the worst mode in the game. It once again plops players in the same map as the PvP modes, but this time, they have repetitive tasks to complete while fighting off computer-controlled opponents. Graveyard Shift shines a spotlight on the map's drawbacks and the limited player count makes it far less interesting than the other modes on offer.

Graveyard Shift is one of two modes that you can properly play solo, with the other being Wildcards. The other match types do not support bots, which is disappointing for those who may not have a full six players but want to play modes other than Wildcards with a full lobby. What's bizarre is that Midnight Murder Club lets players start up these non-bot modes by themselves if they want, and it's even possible to earn trophies in them without doing anything. I let the timer run out in a Free-for-All mode by myself and was awarded the trophy for winning one. This is great news for trophy hunters who want easy trophies, but is unlikely to move the needle for anyone else.

Midnight Murder Club is the kind of game that is dependent entirely on who you play with for it to be fun. The core concept is great and lends itself well to funny moments with friends, but the matchmaking experience is dreadful, the PvE mode is a waste of time, and the bot restrictions are head-scratching. If you can scrounge up five friends to play with, Midnight Murder Club is good for some laughs, but everyone else will be better off playing a different multiplayer game.

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