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Midnight Murder Club is a bite-sized first-person shooter with a novel premise that makes it price attempting out.
Set in a pitch black mansion, this PS5 exclusive (nicely, console unique) challenges you to trace different gamers utilizing solely the sunshine from a small torch and audio cues like muffled footsteps, the creaking sound of doorways opening, and overheard conversations by means of proximity chat.
Review information
Platform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PC, PS5
Release date: August 14, 2025
When you have a full match of six players all using their microphones, the atmosphere is absolutely electric. There’s serious tension as you creep around, which always gives way to pure chaos once the shooting starts. If you’re looking for something to try on your next night of gaming with friends, then you can certainly do much worse for the modest $9.99 / £8.99 asking price. There’s even a ‘Guest Pass’ feature that lets your buddies join in completely for free, which is appreciated.
Unfortunately, the experience falls apart when you don’t have a dedicated group. Finding online matches is almost impossible thanks to a tiny pool of players just a few weeks after launch, and the few offline modes, while a decent starter course, won’t keep you entertained for long.
Lights out
Midnight Murder Club offers a total of five player-versus-player (PvP) game modes, and while they follow the same general format, a few unique mechanics keep each one interesting.
The main mode is called Wildcards and features three teams of two players vying for the most kills. At the start of the match, every player selects a titular wildcard from a deck, each one boasting a unique effect. This ranges from simple bonuses like faster reload speeds and more effective flashlights to whackier options like a card that turns every gunshot into a loud jazz trumpet toot or another that gives everyone massive heads.
The chosen wildcards affect all players, leading to some enjoyably bonkers combinations. More cards are unlocked with each completed match, too, giving you at least a small reason to keep coming back for more.
Best bit
Nothing quite compares to the satisfaction of nailing a foe using nothing but sound. Hearing footsteps and taking a risky shot only for it to instantly pay off is fantastic every time.
The other modes on offer are a standard free-for-all and team deathmatch, and more exciting ‘Thief in the Night’ and ‘Headhunters’, which see you clamoring to collect valuable skull fragments or destroying evil totems, respectively.
You start off each game armed with a basic revolver that has unlimited ammunition in most modes, but vending machines littered around the map give you access to more powerful machine guns and deadly traps like falling chandeliers. Getting gear from vendors doesn’t cost money, but rather produces a huge amount of light and noise – forcing you to weigh up whether the gear on offer is worth exposing your position.
Your flashlight presents much the same risk-versus-reward proposition. Levels are completely pitch black without it on, so it’s necessary to navigate unless you want to spend most of your time running into walls. Beams of light make it easy to track your location, though, and if you blindly shoot where one is coming from, more often than not, you’ll bag an easy elimination.
Dead silence
Voice chat is a key part of Midnight Murder Club, and coordinating with your team is almost vital for success. It relies on a proximity chat system, where your DualSense Wireless Controller or PS5 headset is continually broadcasting your voice to close by gamers – whether or not buddy or foe.
Turning off your flashlight and following the sound of different gamers’ voices for a sneak melee assault is a continuing supply of devilish satisfaction – significantly whenever you get to listen to their panicked screams as you strike.
Although proximity chat might be a variety of enjoyable, its inclusion does current some dangers whenever you’re taking part in with strangers. I used to be significantly impressed to see an ‘Auto Scramble’ function that routinely distorts the voices of anybody who’s not in your staff.
You can nonetheless decipher common feelings, however particular person phrases are unattainable to make out – an modern and sensible addition that I’d like to see in different on-line video games.
Unfortunately, there are few alternatives to make use of this as the web matchmaking state of affairs is dire. I’ve been looking for matches each day for weeks, and it’s borderline unattainable to discover a full foyer.
To make issues worse, gamers ceaselessly drop out of matches, and the peer-to-peer internet hosting implies that large lag spikes are widespread.
There are some single-player choices right here, like the flexibility to play Wildcards towards bots or mow down computer-controlled enemies within the phases of the normally two-player Graveyard Shift mode, however they’re very restricted, and you actually need a big group of pals to take advantage of it.
Although there may be cross-platform assist, gamers who strive the sport on PC must log in with a PlayStation account along with a Steam one. Given it is a PlayStation revealed recreation, this does make some sense, however it’s nonetheless extremely annoying in a recreation that will in any other case be straightforward to select up and play.
A couple of of the buddies I had lined as much as be a part of me didn’t have already got entry to PlayStation accounts and weren’t keen to fork their e mail addresses over to Sony for what may be a single evening of gaming, in order that they ended up desirous to play one thing else. When discovering matches is already so troublesome, this appears a bit just like the builders capturing themselves within the foot.
All of this leaves Midnight Murder Club troublesome to wholeheartedly suggest. It generally is a improbable time, supplied you’re capable of finding a full foyer – which is sort of unattainable if you happen to’re not taking part in with pals. It’s solely actually price selecting up when you have a bunch of 5 buddies wanting to squad up.
Should I play Midnight Murder Club?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
Accessibility features
There are a few accessibility features in Midnight Murder Club.
You can customize the colors of in-game teams to make them easier to see and invert your camera controls. Most button inputs can also be tweaked on PS5, allowing you to rebind them as needed.
How I reviewed Midnight Murder Club
I played Midnight Murder Club for almost four hours on PS5 utilizing the DualSense Wireless Controller and a pair of Final VR500 gaming earbuds.
In that point, I performed a wide range of matches on-line and explored all of its single-player modes. For communication, I relied on the microphone constructed into the controller.
First reviewed August 2025