Final indie horror game on the list here, but I promise to you it’s a good one. Maybe even the best of the bunch (depending on your tastes).
- Release Year: 2025
- Developer: December Blues Games
- Platform: PC
Listen, we all know I’ve got a thing about old-school survival horror games. I’ve already done a whole spiel about the original Silent Hill, and as good as (most of) the Resident Evil remakes are, my heart will always pull me towards the PS1 originals. And so while it has nicer graphics than those classics, The Mute House really won me over by being very much made in the same vein as them. It’s even got the fixed camera angles!
The story follows a young police officer, searching a spooky old mansion for her missing sister. However, what she finds there is much more deadly: zombies! And also some other random mutants and monsters. You know, the usual. There’s also a mysterious fellow lurking about in the shadows, and it’s unclear whether he’s here to help or hinder your quest. All you can know for sure is whatever is written down in the notes you find that tell the backstory of the manor and the folks who used to live there.
Gameplay is… well, it’s classic survival horror. Run around the mansion, looking for keys to unlock doors, items and clues to solve puzzles, and whatever meager scraps of ammo you can find. As always, unraveling the giant puzzle box that is the game is the most satisfying part, but having to deal with all the monsters in your way can be good fun too. Especially if you pay attention to the tutorial! There’s actually button you can use to free-aim so you can target monsters’ weak points, but I did not realize that until I had finished the game and started a second run, and it made life so much easier. Not like too easy or anything, but way less frustrating!
Speaking of frustrating, that’s a good way to describe most of the bosses. Each one has its own gimmick, which is exactly how bosses should be, but they are all absolute units and will chew through your stocks of ammo. One boss you can actually beat without firing a shot if you’re clever, but I can’t say that any of the others have much more to them than to unload all your bullets into them and hope they die before you run out of heals. But hey, that’s part of the challenge, right?
Aside from the whole free-aim thing, I don’t think that The Mute House really does anything especially unique with its premise, but it’s does everything well. The puzzles are good, there are a handful of cool secrets to find, it has some genuinely frightening moments, and the difficulty is balanced very well. There’s even an unlockable hard mode, which I did play immediately after finishing the game, because I liked it so much.
Honestly, I would like nothing more than to get a console port of The Mute House so I could play it in an environment that’s not my computer desk. It’s a great little game that you can run in around two hours, and I absolutely would if I could do so from the comfort of my couch. Yeah, the free-aiming would be a little harder to implement for controller, but that’s exactly what Switch 2’s mouse controls are for! Anyway, I really adored this game, and I would recommend it to anyone who even a faint appreciation for old-school survival horror.