PS5

Published on August 3rd, 2024 | by Nay Clark

The Mortuary Assistant: Definitive Edition Review (PS5)

Starting a new job can be hard, but doing it while having to fight off demons is a totally different story. Unfortunately for Rebecca Owens, this choice is out of her control and in the hands of something sinister. The Mortuary Assistant is a horror game developed by Darkstone Digital, published by Dread XP, and was initially released on Windows on August 2nd of 2022, on Switch on April 20th of 2023, and arrived on PlayStation and Xbox platforms on August 2nd of 2024; the game’s two year anniversary. This newly released version, the Definitive Edition, offers more content such as new haunts to fear, new bodies to take care of, stability and bug fixes, an embalming only mode and more. Prepare to preserve the bodies of the deceased while protecting your own in this otherworldly struggle between the living and the dead.

Rebecca Owens is trying to get hired at River Fields Mortuary in Connecticut in 1998. Rebecca’s grandmother doesn’t like the idea, but wishes her luck with her new endeavor. With her grandmother’s opinions in her thoughts, Rebecca continues with her hopes and dreams and eventually gets the job she had desired. Her first official night as an embalmer takes a turn for the worse as she realizes she is trapped within the confines of the building’s vicinity. It becomes more clear after following the instructions from the head mortician, Raymond Delver, that there is evil afoot. Rebecca, now determined more than ever, has to take the necessary precautions in exorcising a supernatural entity and properly embalming the deceased bodies while also fighting off her own destructive past and inner demons.

The story of The Mortuary Assistant is pretty unique off of the premise of working as an embalmer alone. It doesn’t take long to complete the game, but every run through you do will be different. Items like scalpels and eye caps spawn in different locations and the demon sigils you need to find to identify the evil spirit are also randomized. While playing the game, Rebecca will be transported into a dreamscape where more of the story will unfold; so if you replay the game to try to get another one of the many endings, you will end up uncovering and understanding more of the overall narrative. The way the story is spaced out between the gameplay is also pretty distinct from other horror games and sometimes really flows in and out of the main characters psyche in a natural and engrossing way.

The gameplay fully utilizes the embalming occupation elements and couples them with the game’s horror aspects in genius ways. You will be pulling the departed from their respected refrigerated lockers, checking for any marks on their bodies, cleaning machines with chemicals, so on and so forth, but all the while you need to be looking for sigils scattered around the building of a demon that has possessed one of the bodies you are embalming. After finding the sigils using the provided letting strips, you need to put the symbols in the correct sequence and then place the mark on the body that you think the demon is possessing. Burning that body that you think has been taken over by the wicked fiend will end your nightmare.

The Mortuary Assistant is filled with wonderful jumpscares that will have you second guessing your time playing. Sometimes while you are going through your normal procedural routine of preserving the bodies, the person being operated on will start talking to you. At one point I was typing out the report for one of the patients and a shadowy figure walked up to the front of the desk and disappeared. A ghostly figure may peer through a cracked door or you may hear loud footsteps coming from the next room over. The Mortuary Assistant: Definitive Edition doesn’t hold back any punches by having even more disturbing haunting events that are sure to keep you up at night.

The sound design can be unnerving and horrific in the best way possible. You are dealing with dead bodies here so prepare to hear a lot of wet, squishy, and squelching types of sounds uncomfortably reverberating off your eardrums. The slender metallic beds rattle when you push them around and ghostly whispers are terrifying. Even the loud droning sound of the machine that is used in the process of draining blood can be quite nerving when you also need to focus on the continuous haunts on your poor soul. The voice work is also pretty spine-chilling, especially when you hear a voice beckoning you to come towards them down a dark hallway. 

The character models here don’t look good graphically. Their lips move wildly and their scraggly hair is unrealistically styled and placed upon their heads. The characters shadows are repulsive as well, sometimes being awkwardly placed, making the character model look even worse. At one point, a character’s model becomes frozen and it looks odd and the lip sync between the dialogue and the characters mouth movements are peculiarly bizarre, but it never pulled me out of my horror experience or diminished my fun with the game. The environments, items, and everything else that most of the game is focused on looks great though.

While some bugs have been squashed and stability issues have been fixed here in the Definitive Edition, I did run into a number of uncanny happenings that weren’t caused by the body possessing malignant beings. Once, I couldn’t pick up the embalming report, but eventually it let me do it after interacting with it multiple times. A character walked through a desk and I was able to push a patient through a closed door. I know Raymond Delver is the boss and he has to have his eyes on me at all times, but one time, his head completely revolved around his unmoving body when I got behind him. The side of the cellar disappears if you are a certain distance away from it. Some of the user interface designs can continuously be scrolled through which strangely changes the lighting on it. Graphical glitches occur like the black fogginess at the end of a hallway being bright pink instead of black. There is a small cutscene where you get attacked and your character model breaks out of the animation somehow so you are left awkwardly standing there for a moment. Navigating the main computer in a certain way will always leave it in a frozen state that you then have to back out of and go back into it to complete your tasks. This game has a lot of inadequate issues, but at the end of the day, they aren’t what I remember from my entertaining time running through the vacant morgue.

Final Thoughts?

The Mortuary Assistant: Definitive Edition is one of the creepiest games I have ever played. As a huge fan of horror games, I cannot recommend this game enough. The poor quality with some of the games design like graphical glitches and bad character models are easily swept aside by the crux of the game being executed flawlessly. The ominous environment, hair-raising sound design, and the dreadful marriage between the horror elements and gameplay mechanics are just exemplary and this definitive edition is quintessential for any horror game enthusiast. With all of the extra content added to this version of the game, now is the perfect time to jump in and experience The Mortuary Assistant in all of its petrifying glory. I hope you have a delightful time dealing with the dead and demons hiding in the dark.

About the Author

Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.

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