Sorry We’re Closed review – the most romantic survival horror ever-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Sorry We’re Closed – it’s not like other survival horrors (Akupara Games)

One of the year’s strangest indie games is both a homage to Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill, and a surprisingly insightful piece of romantic fiction.

We miss Suda51. Although Goichi Suda has been making games since the early 90s it was in the mid-2000s, with games like killer7 and No More Heroes, that he made a name for himself in the West, with his engaging mixture of surrealism, pop culture references, and philosophical musings.

He’s one of the few game creators whose work you can immediately identify from its tone and visuals, but he’s released increasingly few games in recent years (his new title, Hotel Barcelona has been delayed into 2025) and the raw energy of his early titles now seems but a distant memory. That is, until you play Sorry We’re Closed by British studio à la mode games.

We say studio, they’re really just two people in Bournemouth, but from the second you turn on Sorry We’re Closed it’s obvious they’re big fans of Suda51. But rather than just copying his style they’re able to absorb his influence and create something equally striking of their own.

Despite what it may look like, Sorry We’re Closed is a survival horror game. There’s lots of weird elements you wouldn’t normally expect to see from such a game, but the root of the gameplay is heavily inspired by Resident Evil and Silent Hill, as well as killer7.

You play the role of Michelle, a seemingly ordinary young woman working a dead end job in a London corner shop, and pining over her ex-girlfriend who is now a famous soap opera star. That’s the least of her problems though when her mundane existence is impinged upon by an eight-foot-tall demon called The Duchess, who demands that Michelle love her.

As a demon, The Duchess regrets her fall from Heaven, or at least the absence of love in her life, and so curses Michelle with a third eye, in an attempt to make her seem more appealing. This doesn’t work as intended though, once Michelle realises she can now see other demons and angels, as well as other cursed people and hellish versions of ordinary locations.

The latter doesn’t work exactly like Silent Hill, as you can only see the alternate world in a small sphere around you, which creates some interesting problems when you’re simply trying to beat a hasty retreat. In combat, you have to use your third eye to show the weak spots of enemies, when fighting them in first person combat, but if they move outside your field of vision that’s not possible, so you have to get perilously close to make an effective attack.

The switch from third person exploration to first person shooting is very reminiscent of the original Resident Evil 4 not allowing you to both move and shoot and, just like Capcom’s classic, it’s a gamble as you commit yourself to the attack and struggle to get away if things get hairy. Although if you switch to first person when an enemy is already in third eye range they’ll be briefly stunned, which is a clever bit of risk and reward, and very helpful when dealing with groups.

Sorry We’re Closed – aim for the heart! (Akupara Games)

There’s also some simple puzzle-solving, often involving light/dark world style exploration where you remove an obstacle in one reality to clear a path in the other. This could’ve maybe done with being expanded on, because the foundations are there for something more complex and testing, but as it is the puzzles are just a minor, palette-cleansing distraction.

The combat system is great at increasing the tension in a game that is already far creepier and disturbing than the neon-coloured screenshots are probably making it seem right now. Most indie games have low-tech visuals because they can’t afford anything else but the vaguely PlayStation 2 era graphics in Sorry We’re Closed work perfectly at setting the off-kilter mood and are surprisingly emotive during dialogue sequence.

Apart from being a fun survival horror, Sorry We’re Closed also benefits from a sharp script, with both cutting humour and bouts of seriousness; especially when you’re contemplating which of the game’s many characters you should choose to help and how the moral decisions you’re forced to make will affect their future and/or love life. The game’s characters are all demons and angels but their problems and flaws, especially when it comes to romance, are very human.

There’s a confidence and punkish energy to Sorry We’re Closed that is immediately engaging and all the more impressive because this seems to be the developer’s first game. It’s a little rough around the edges (one constant bugbear is that it’s often not clear when you’re taking damage from distant enemies) but the game’s greatest crime is that it’s all over too soon, at an all too brief six hours.

That’s a good problem to have because it leaves you wanting more, not necessarily from Michelle and The Duchess but certainly à la mode games. Indie games have always been a welcome respite from the soulless competence of bigger budget games but Sorry We’re Closed feels like nothing else being made today and we’re very much open to seeing more from the same team.

Formats: PC
Price: £20.99
Publisher: Akupara Games
Developer: à la mode games
Release Date: 14th November 2024
Age Rating: N/A

Sorry We’re Closed – The Duchess doesn’t take no for an answer (Akupara Games)

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

Entertainment – MetroRead More