Sorry, We’re Closed takes the corridor crawling, limited ammo and puzzles of 90s survival horror and gives it a grungy, punk twist.
There are a lot of people out there with very fond memories of the Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Parasite Eve games from when they were the cool new thing. Tight corridors, fixed camera angles and limited ammo were things that had all been around for a while (arguably the Survival Horror vibe started back in the NES age with Sweet Home) but weren’t done in that particular way until then. The thing is, it was all done with mucky greys and browns in sloppy polygons and, well, we played them on these awful RGB CRT TVs before HDMI and flat screens — nostalgia and imagination filled in the gaps for us. Sorry We’re Closed does a phenomenal job of picking up where those games left us, and a great job of filling in where nostalgia hasn’t had time to develop yet.
You’re Michelle, a 20-something from London who winds up cursed. Rather than accepting her last few days of life she rejects it with the help of a friend and dives into the depths of abandoned buildings, which just happen to double as demonic realms. You’ll snap (literally — there’s a cool snapping noise that plays when you do it) between both realms by using your third eye, which creates a cool effect where objects around you appear as they do in the other realm.
This means that a lot of the puzzling is tied to being in the right instance of the world, which you could probably argue doubles the size of the game world. You’ll shift between them to erase blockades and boxes from your way, open doors that were forced shut and use electrical and mechanical elements that only exist in one of the two worlds.
The third eye skill isn’t just useful for the exploration and puzzle element of Sorry We’re Closed though, it crops up in combat too. When you view enemies with your third eye you see their weak spots and if you trigger the third eye while they’re close to you then you’ll stun them, which gives you a great chance at pulling off a really damaging shot.
While your second weapon comes along fast, and ammo doesn’t feel massively limited, you can really keep your ammo count up if you opt to keep the tension up by letting enemies get close so that you can pull off great shots. The fact that you can switch into first person also alleviates one of the biggest complaints about the old, tank-controlled survival horrors and leans even more into giving you control over when and how you fight the various demons that litter the environments.
Now, the third eye stuff is clearly essential to the whole game, especially how it plays, but there’s something to be said about the fantastic colour design and narrative. There’s a grounded nonchalance about the characters, a kind of low-energy acceptance of the weird stuff that’s going on around them.
Sorry We’re Closed is really, really cool and has a slummy, working class acceptance equivalent to the jacked-up marine shouting of action movies that fits absolutely fantastic. That kind of counter-fear energy fits perfectly with the hot pinks and lime greens that accent its characters, text boxes and items within the world. It’s got the style, it’s got the setting, it’s got the substance. I can’t wait to play more of it.
Sorry We’re Closed is expected to launch on PC later this year.
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