The game is set in a sunny Italian countryside in 1944, which is not so sunny thanks to the cloud of World War II casting a deep shadow over everything. The protagonist, Giulia, is the daughter of a German general, and in the opening moments of a game, she chances upon the dead, drowned body of her deaf twin sister Martha in a lake that’s said to be haunted by a spirit known as the White Lady. A case of mistaken identity, however, leads to her parents believing that it’s her that died and Martha who found the body, and Giulia, who has always felt neglected by her family compared to her sister, fails to correct oversight.

"The gradual ramping up of palpable tension has always been the hallmark of good psychological horror, but Martha is Dead takes that a little too far, to the point where the bulk of the experience feels plodding and meandering."

It’s a rather unique and interesting premise, and one that the game digs into in some interesting ways, especially as you learn more and more about Giulia’s tough relationship with her mother. As her psyche unravels throughout the experience, she becomes an increasingly unreliable narrator, and trying to piece together what exactly happened in the lake becomes more complicated as the story progresses. Weaving in and out of this psychological murder mystery, which has dashes of supernatural horror thrown in for good measure, is the story of the war itself, bringing with it its own intrigue and tying into the central narrative in some interesting ways.

Or at least so it feels in the beginning. The problem with Martha is Dead is that it can be a bit too overindulgent with its pacing, a lot of which comes down to how the game plays. More of a walking simulator than a horror game, the vast majority of Martha is Dead tasks players with walking from place to place and clicking photos of objects or investigating certain things, and while the photography itself is impressively fleshed out – from tinkering with the aperture, focus, and framing of your shots to switching out different lenses to take specific photos in different situations – everything else feels too rudimentary, and as such, mundane. Significant stretches of the game feel so uneventful that they can make Red Dead Redemption 2’s prologue look like a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled romp.

It doesn’t help that the moment-to-moment gameplay just doesn’t feel great either. The walking speed is too slow, and the sprinting speed is only marginally faster, which doesn’t gel very well with the fact that you’re walking around a lot in this game, and often across distances that might not feel like much on paper (the game is set in Guilia’s countryside villa and the woodlands surrounding it), but feel padded out due to the slow pace at which you move. You can unlock the ability to ride a bicycle for some of the longer journeys, but surprisingly, the movement speed there isn’t a huge change from your sprint either, while actually controlling the bike always feels clunky and weirdly unresponsive.

"Significant stretches of the game feel so uneventful that they can make Red Dead Redemption 2’s prologue look like a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled romp."

Other aspects of Martha is Dead’s gameplay let the experience down as well. Given its slow and plodding nature, a lot of the game sees you combing through environments and interacting with very specific objects, but frustratingly enough, looking at the object you want to and highlighting it as what you want to interact with can often feel inaccurate, so you’ll often find yourself making microscopic adjustments to your standing position and the angle at which you’re looking at something just so the game can realize that that’s the thing you want to pick up or examine.

Certain other gameplay sections feel clunky in execution as well- like a section that has you sending coded messages via a telegram, which requires you to actually input all of it in using morse code. That sounds interesting on paper, but in practice, it’s shoddily executed and takes unnecessarily long. Meanwhile, the game is also often broken up by sections that see you running through the woods and stitching together sentences by taking forks in the path- and if you take the wrong fork, you go back to the beginning of the sentence. It’s not fun, it makes no sense on even on a conceptual level, and it happens way too often.

That said, existing in the simultaneously quaint and unsettling world of Martha is Dead has its charms as well. The game deserves a lot of credit for how authentically it recreates its period setting, and how effectively it transports you to that place and time. It’s easy to instantly get immersed in the game’s version of 1940s Italy, and everything from news reports and radio broadcasts about the war ravaging through Europe to the detail that’s been poured into the period-appropriate photography mechanics contributes to the game’s authenticity. It also helps that visually, Martha is Dead looks quite good. It won’t knock your socks off, but the art design and visual fidelity work together well enough breathe more life into the setting. It’s not a faultless experience in this area either – there are some noticeable technical issues and visual glitches, such as entire sections of the world being replaced by blank, black textures even as you’re walking through them – but by and large, it still impresses on a visual level.

"There are some good ideas here that deserved to be in a better game, but as it stands right now, Martha is Dead is a frustrating experience that fails to do justice to those ideas."

That really just sumps up Martha is Dead as a game though- it’s got a lot going for it, but it often gets in its own way. The narrative premise is unique and makes its distinct elements work together surprisingly well, but it’s pacing might very well turn you away if you don’t have the patience (or inclination) to stick with it. The setting is beautiful and lovingly crafted, but actually playing the game often feels like a chore for one reason or the other. There are some good ideas here that deserved to be in a better game, but as it stands right now, Martha is Dead is a frustrating experience that fails to do justice to those ideas.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

"Each of us sees reality with our own eyes and one of the most challenging works in Martha Is Dead, as in our previous title, was to “deform” reality so that it appears subjective. When I say deform reality, I don’t mean to deform the historical and cultural facts of a period, which shape the people who live it, I mean rather to deform it from a perceptive point of view."

With its WW2 setting, the central crux of personal loss, and its psychological horror trappings, there’s certainly a lot going on in Martha is Dead, story-wise. What sort of a balance does the game strike between these aspects?

Luca Dalco (Writer / Director): The central point of Martha Is Dead is the protagonist. Her interiority. Everything else is something that happens to her and has value only in this vision. Each of us sees reality with our own eyes and one of the most challenging works in Martha Is Dead, as in our previous title, was to “deform” reality so that it appears subjective. When I say deform reality, I don’t mean to deform the historical and cultural facts of a period, which shape the people who live it, I mean rather to deform it from a perceptive point of view.

Can you talk about what players can expect from the game’s free exploration aspect, in terms of the size of the environments and how the game will encourage and reward exploration?

Dalco: The environment contains several gameplay elements that are not mandatory, but help a lot in understanding and deepening the story. The environments are not so big as to be dispersive and there is no shortage of things to do.  This path has been followed both to make the gameplay more interesting and freer, and to allow the player to feel the presence of the environment that surrounds him/her more, as a protagonist and witness of what happens.

Martha is Dead seems to have some things in common with your previous title, The Town of Light, in that they’re both psychological horror stories taking place in historical settings. What lessons from that game have you taken into the development of your current project?

Dalco: First of all we understood that the theme of psychological disorder, treated with respect and attention, is something that not only the video game, as a medium, is able to support, but also that there is a lot of interest in. Martha Is Dead is very different from The Town of Light. The first one was a story, in Martha Is Dead things happen while you play them, so the immersion and identification is even greater. We understand that these are stories that can affect, even deeply and it is very important that the player is properly warned before embarking on this experience. On the other hand, a mental disorder is often a source of terrible suffering and cannot be “sweetened”, otherwise a wrong message would pass.

Martha is Dead’s story is promising a unique mix of folklore against the backdrop of a war- how did the idea for that kind of a blend come about?

Dalco: Immersiveness. We want maximum immersiveness. For this reason we looked for all the aspects that characterized that period, all that our protagonist experienced and we tried to tell this experience, before the elements themselves.

"We want maximum immersiveness. For this reason we looked for all the aspects that characterized that period, all that our protagonist experienced and we tried to tell this experience, before the elements themselves."

Does Martha is Dead feature any combat, or is it a game focused more in other areas?

Dalco: The combat encounters are something that flows in the background of the game. The girl does not experience them directly. The war comes to her filtered through adult accounts, radio news, newspaper articles. A very hard encounter with the war is there, but it is not combat.

It seems like taking and developing photographs will be one of the side activities that Martha is Dead will offer. Can you talk a little bit more about how this will figure into the game?

Dalco: Taking and printing “old style” photos is part of the soul of the game. We’ve tried to create a system that gives you an idea of what photography was like in those days, without pushing it into a real simulator that would be very hard to play. Sometimes photographs are necessary and functional to the gameplay, but we hope that this element will push players to experiment on their own, to play with the many accessories to get personal and special shots of the game’s environments.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of Martha is Dead be?

Dalco: Difficult question. It depends a lot on how much the player wants to immerse themselves in the game, how much they want to finish all the tasks present. I would suggest a range between 6 and 9 hours.

What are your plans for Martha is Dead where post-launch support is concerned? Can players expect any additional content down the line?

Dalco: There are many ideas. The world of Martha Is Dead can easily be enriched thanks to the many ideas that the game offers, but nothing is decided yet. I personally would be delighted to work on additional content. There’s one particular idea that… but I can’t talk about it now, hopefully it can be done!

Do you have any plans to eventually bring the game to the Switch?

Dalco: Not at this time.

Do you have any plans to optimize the game for Steam Deck? If yes, what kind of specifications can we expect?

Dalco: That’s something we’ll address right after the release. Interest is sky high, of course!

"The world of Martha Is Dead can easily be enriched thanks to the many ideas that the game offers, but nothing is decided yet. I personally would be delighted to work on additional content."

Given that you have now worked on all three current gen consoles, I hope you don’t mind answering some of the tech questions. Since the reveal of the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s specs, a lot of comparisons have been made between the GPU speeds of the two consoles, with the PS5 at 10.28 and the Xbox Series X at 12 TFLOPS- but how much of an impact on development do you think that difference will have? 

Tommaso Bonanni (LKA’s external development team): The performance gap seen in the previous generation is non-existent in this one. During our work we have been able to find that there are particular situations in which the Xbox Series X GPU is slightly more ahead.

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth. How can developers take advantage of this, and how does this compare to Xbox Series X’s 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth?

Bonanni: We are all amazed by the performance of the PS5 SSD, which in itself is a technical gem. However, the element that really makes the difference here is the PS5’s data reading and writing system, which is extremely efficient. Even on some occasions we have found the fact that PS5 loads some scenes too quickly compared to other consoles and PCs, literally broke the loading of the levels because it was totally unexpected, so we had to get our hands on the code to counterbalance this excessive loading speed.

There is a difference in Zen 2 CPUs of both consoles. The Xbox Series X features 8x Zen 2 cores at 3.8GHz whereas the PS5 features 8x Zen 2 cores at 3.5GHz. Your thoughts on this difference? 

Bonanni: We are talking about a minimum amount of fps that is verifiable only in very demanding situations and does not significantly change the gaming experience in any case at the moment.

In our opinion, in a few years when developers will become more familiar with both hardware and will be able to push them to the maximum, in that moment we will see slight differences, but in our opinion, those will always be details for insiders that users will not notice in most cases.

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series X and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60fps console. Do you think it will be able to hold up for the graphically intensive next-gen games?

Bonanni: In our opinion, only in this first phase is it still possible to speak of totally equivalent experiences. In the long run, the differences will be seen in high-performance games. Much also depends on how the developer intends to exploit the hardware difference. In our case, being a not very frenetic experience, based mainly on the graphic aspect, we decided to maintain the same graphic quality on both Microsoft consoles, at the expense of fluidity (we believe that 30 fps on Xbox Series S is more than enough to enjoy a similar title) so the experience can be defined as equivalent after all.

Super Resolution is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. How do you think this will help game developers?

Bonanni: We have been using Super Resolution on all generations and we are very impressed. It has truly allowed us to push Martha Is Dead’s graphics beyond what we expected and we believe that software solutions such as this are the best answer to keep the life of consoles as long as possible. We are talking of gaining 5-10 FPS in most situations without losing any details in the image, incredible.

What frame rate and resolution will Martha is Dead target on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S?

Bonanni: Both PS5 and Xbox Series X have two game modes: one at 4k 30fps and one at 1080 60fps, while Xbox Series S is at 1080 30fps but maintaining the same level of quality. It is important to mention that in any case the use of Super Resolution very often brings the 1080 versions to higher resolutions (even on Xbox Series S) so the resolution gap will probably be less noticeable.

Through an update via their official Twitter, the developer announced that even though they have been pretty open and transparent about the discomforting scenes and themes the game will include, they will be modifying the experience on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions, removing certain elements from the game altogether. The game however, will still launch on PlayStation on February 24, but the physical release for the console is delayed to a yet to be disclosed date.

Regardless, the PC and Xbox versions of Martha is Dead are unaffected, and will be launched with the full unedited gameplay and story. The game is also planning to target 4K/30 FPS and 1080p/60 FPS on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

A statement on Martha Is Dead pic.twitter.com/iI3T5s4LYR

— Martha Is Dead (@MarthaisDead) February 11, 2022

Speaking with GamingBolt in a recent interview, Tommaso Bonanni – technical director and part of LKA’s external development team – confirmed that on PS5 and Xbox Series X, Martha is Dead will feature 4K/30 FPS and 1080p/60 FPS options, while on the Xbox Series S, it’ll only feature a 1080p/30 FPS option. While that disparity will be disappointing to some, Bonanni says that with the use of Super Resolution, the game’s resolution on Xbox Series S is likely to be higher.

“Both PS5 and Xbox Series X have two game modes: one at 4K/30 FPS and one at 1080p/60 FPS, while Xbox Series S is at 1080p/30 FPS, but maintaining the same level of quality,” Bonanni said. “It is important to mention that in any case the use of Super Resolution very often brings the 1080p versions to higher resolutions (even on Xbox Series S) so the resolution gap will probably be less noticeable.”

In the same interview, Bonanni also spoke with us about the PS5’s SSD and his experience working with it, calling it a “technical gem”. Read more on that through here.

Martha is Dead is due out for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC on February 24. Our full interview with the game’s developers will be live soon, so stay tuned for that.

It’s not just the big games that are benefiting from the technology either. LKA’s external development team, which is working on upcoming horror title Martha is Dead, have also found the console’s SSD to be amazing. GamingBolt interviewed LKA’s Tommaso Bonanni on how the team took advantage of the PS5 SSD’s 5.5 GB/s Raw Read Bandwidth and 9-9 GB/s Compressed Bandwidth, and how it compared to the Xbox Series X.

Bonanni said, “We are all amazed by the performance of the PS5 SSD, which in itself is a technical gem. However, the element that really makes the difference here is the PS5’s data reading and writing system, which is extremely efficient. Even on some occasions we have found the fact that PS5 loads some scenes too quickly compared to other consoles and PCs, literally broke the loading of the levels because it was totally unexpected, so we had to get our hands on the code to counterbalance this excessive loading speed.”

Martha is Dead releases on February 24th for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and PC. Stay tuned for more details and gameplay in the coming weeks.

Set in 1944 Italy with World War 2 raging on, the story focuses on Guilia who learns that her twin sister Martha has died. Along with managing the aftermath, Guilia seeks the truth behind Martha’s death. Players will explore Tuscany’s countryside, use marionettes to uncover repressed memories, use tarot cards and keep track of the war via newspapers and the radio. You can even take pictures, though the process involves developing them with a dark room.

Martha is Dead also seeks to create an authentic experience, whether it’s in the Italian voice-acting or the music with reimagined tracks like “Bella Ciao.” Stay tuned for more details and gameplay footage en route to the new release date.

People are giddy for the next generation of consoles. While Microsoft has unveiled the Xbox Series X, their next Xbox interation, Sony has largely stayed quiet about their system, with mostly rumors and some tidbits of information sustaining us. Developers and publishers have said vague things to excite the masses, and now LKA is talking about something you don’t hear about.

In the newest issue Official PlayStation Magazine UK (April 2020), the head of LKA talked about how impressed he was by the Texel density capabilities of Sony’s new console. They said it’s enough to realize a lot of potential in creating some amazing texture work, bringing new life to games, especially horror games. They say it’ll help realize big things for their upcoming spooky title, Martha Is Dead.

“PS5’s specifications are incredibly exciting – particularly for us is the additional graphical power and inclusion of ray-tracing architecture. Our studio has come a long way over four years and Martha Is Dead will strive for photorealism. We’re excited to see the next-generation hardware incoming to support us bringing our vision to players.

We worked a lot in order to use the highest-resolution textures as possible also on PS4; nonetheless, PS5 will allow us to use an incredible Texel density, up to 4096px/m – that means the visual will be fully detailed also in higher resolutions. It’s one of the most important advances in visual capacity that we were waiting for.”

Visual upgrades are a pretty standard thing with any new consoles, but it’s always a little exciting to think about what kind of things can be accomplished and how pretty everything can be. Sony is set to unveil the PS5 soon with the slated release coming this holiday season.

The Nintendo Switch has proven to be a sort of gold rush for independent game developers, who have found a hugely receptive market on the system, with an audience that is appreciative of their games, and will buy them as long as they are good. So it should never come as a surprise when an indie title is confirmed for Nintendo’s hybrid platform.

Such as this one- LKA and Wired Productions have confirmed that The Town of Light, a psychological horror adventure game that challenges the player to think about its implications, will be coming to the Switch. The “Deluxe Edition” that will be the Switch release will include “bonus documentary content”, which should shed more light on the game’s setting and story.

You can check out the Switch announcement trailer for the game for yourself below. The game is slated for a Switch launch this Spring; it is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

GamingBolt spoke to LKA’s studio head Luca Dalcò about the game, currently available for PC and releasing on June 6th for PS4 and Xbox One. The inspiration for the setting, recreating the mood of Italy and much more help illuminate what the Town of Light really is.

"During the game The Town of Light attempts to balance the protagonist’s possible mental health concerns with her humanity, attempting to hold the two in balance to allow the player to make their own evaluation of the truth of Renée’s condition."

What inspired the concept for The Town of Light? How long did it take to develop and what challenges did you face along the way?

The Town of Light is your brainchild due to events in your own life. You wanted to create a game which talked about mental health, exploring the issues surrounding and dispelling the stigma.

The biggest challenge within creating the game was to create a well-balanced narrative, when creating a story which finds its grounding in reality you have to be incredibly sensitive towards that context and the people and institutions involved. We believe the game achieves this goal, it allows the player to determine their own outlook.

How difficult was it to depict the issues surrounding mental health care, both from a narrative and gameplay perspective, especially given the game’s old-time setting?

Depicting the issues around mental health is an incredibly sensitive issue and one which in particular required a great deal of consideration. There is a simple fact that whilst institutions in the 1930s-40s did house patients suffering with the symptoms of mental illness, these institutions often also housed people with no medical issues at all, simply to allow those people to exist out of society – these included for example people with alcohol abuse issues as well as people who practiced homosexuality.

During the game The Town of Light attempts to balance the protagonist’s possible mental health concerns with her humanity, attempting to hold the two in balance to allow the player to make their own evaluation of the truth of Renée’s condition. Here it would be too easy to create a ‘victims’ and ‘villains’ narrative which we were keen to avoid, because there are a huge number of factors which contributed to the poor care of patients. A social worker who worked at the Asylum shortly before its closure in the 1970s stated that even amongst staff it was said that it took only three months to become institutionalized, and this in itself they considered a condition which caused many issues for both the patients and the staff who worked there.

The Town of Light is also interesting because it’s a different kind of “horror”, one that is founded on real life and real people. What kind of potential did that present in terms of character development and atmosphere?

The horrors of the real world and those of the past are much greater than any supernatural influence and ultimately more harrowing because they represent reality. Although the protagonist is in herself fictional, the events of her life within the asylum tell the stories of many patients who suffered there.

The game tries to avoid unnecessary departures from the real world setting and a factual approach but there are a few moments where we bend the rules too.

"As you explore the asylum you encounter objects from Renée’s past, it’s up to the player how they interpret the evidence and how they reason with the protagonist."

How did Italy add to the mood of the overall story? How much effort went into recreating the city?

The real location in which the game is set is very atmospheric in its own right so we had to change very little. The game centres around two buildings which are part of the hospital complex at Volterra (the complex itself had a huge number of buildings, housing over 5,000 patients and operating various trades e.g. butchers, tailors & workshops on site).

In terms of the method we employed a number of tactics to ensure that the building was accurate, from photogrammetry and architects drawings to flying drones around the building to see areas which we were unable to explore by foot. Everything has been recreated even down to small details like graffiti around the building.

The two areas in which we had the greatest control were the use of light and the placement of objects (the facility has largely been emptied but a great number of items have been preserved by the special museum there.) We had to rely on these as our key tools to create atmosphere.

What is the player’s objective in The Town of Light? Does the narrative follow a linear path or does it move back and forth between different times?

The player’s objective is simply to discover the truth, they see the world as it is in this day through the eyes of Renée who is returning to the asylum to uncover the secrets of her past.

As you explore the asylum you encounter objects from Renée’s past, it’s up to the player how they interpret the evidence and how they reason with the protagonist. This will ultimately influence the path the story takes and “version of the truth” you see. It will depend very much on the players own intuition, whether they’re someone who places their belief in the protagonist or the staff of the establishment.

The paths the players can take are inspired by Vittorino Andreoli, a famous Italian psychiatrist, researcher and writer who wrote about the four mechanisms of defence.

How strongly does the soundtrack influence the action? What went into its development? For that matter, how important was the sound design for the entire experience and how does it immerse players in the story?

It was about using sound and music at the right times. Not every second needs to have a full score playing all the time. The right music and sounds are picked to reinforce the game’s events, not to distract from them. There are times where the audio is not so much music, but sound to show in a way the detrition of the character’s mental health at key moments.

"We think VR has a real future in exploring real locations, with the recreation of these locations at the centre of The Town of Light."

What kind of playtime can be expected from the entire experience? Are there secrets that can be uncovered by revisiting the game or multiple endings?

There are multiple story paths that can be uncovered by revisiting the game along with a number of collectable items within the Charcot (this has been expanded for the console edition along with new story elements.) We’re confident that it’s a more expansive experience than ever before and we hope people will want to replay the game and explore everything the game has to offer.

What are your thoughts on VR with regards to bringing to life concepts such as The Town of Light? Do you think we’ll see more such experiences that help players see things from a different POV?

We think VR has a real future in exploring real locations, with the recreation of these locations at the centre of The Town of Light. We did explore VR in our initial PC release of the game but our focus right now is bringing Renée’s story to the console audience. That is not to say that it’s something we won’t explore post-launch.

When can we expect The Town of Light to release on Xbox One and PS4?

We recently confirmed our release date for June 6th!

The big new technology pushes with the Scorpio and Pro are UHD, 4K, and VR- which of these personally excites you the most, as developers?

I think as a developer who wants to recreate the real world we have to be excited about anything that enables us to deliver on our vision, whether that’s HDR, 4K or VR each of these bring something new and exciting to the table and we’ll be looking to take full advantage of these as the technology