Midnight Murder Club review: A fun, frantic PS5 multiplayer shooter in the dark

Velan Studios has created a fresh-feeling new multiplayer online shooter where you’ll be armed with a gun and a torch in a pitch black mansion with 5 rivals all seeking to end you

This is a rather intriguing little multiplayer shooter that mixes elements of hide-and-seek with first-person gun blasting.

Midnight Murder Club comes from Velan Studios and has progressed from Early Access development to a full release now on PS5 and PC for the cut price of just under £9.

The game is a fairly simple one, work with pals or alone in multiplayer games of six people to survive the night in a spooky mansion called Wormwood Manor.

Depending on the mode you choose you’ll either be facing a free-for-all shoot fest or a team versus team battle to become the last ones standing.

The clever use of the dark makes this game stand out from your Call of Duties.

You’re thrown into the game with a hand gun and a torch and – while you’ll need the torch to see where you are and where you’re heading in the pitch black of night – it also massively shows rival players where exactly in the room you are.

If they see you in the mansion, of course they’ll shoot you and the tension of when to switch on and off that torch is what makes Midnight Murder Club such a unique, fun game to play.

In turn, you’ll find yourself becoming a hunter, dashing around the stately manor, checking nooks and crannies for hiding rivals.

Once spotted, all hell breaks loose and bullets fly everywhere with frantic gunfire ringing through the hall and colourful bullet lines dancing through the air.

The tension turns to hilarity as you discover just how tricky it is to navigate and shoot in complete darkness. You sprint toward your friends’ shouting voices echoing through the mansion, only to bump into someone else hiding in a dark corner.

Shots ring out, luring other hunters to your location.

Every flash of the flashlight is the promise of a deadly firefight.

This is Midnight Murder Club. And it is great fun.

The developers have decided that those who purchase a copy can invite up to five friends to play at no additional cost.

What a brilliant idea, because it means you’ll have a bunch of pals thankful for a cost-free new gaming experience on the PS5 that really encourages collaboration and rivalry.

When you’re playing with friends, be sure to use the in-game proximity chat instead of a Discord call.

This allows you to fully immerse yourself by listening for your friends’ voices echoing through seemingly far-off rooms of the mansion behind the footsteps, wood creaks, doors, and gunshots… unless they’ve been hiding in the same room with you, that is.

The PS5’s DualSense controller is great for this game.

It’s haptic feedback adds a sense of touch to the game when you bump into something and adaptive triggers give weight to every click of your flashlight and every pull of your trigger.

In the Wildcards mode up to six players also get to play cards from their collection that alter and shape the way the match is played.

The some 40-odd cards can introduce things like giant heads to make rivals easier to shoot, machine guns that blast entire rooms apart and deadly chandeliers that can drop from the ceilings killing enemies.

For solo players or twosomes there is a Graveyard Shift mode where you take on a gauntlet of increasingly difficult rounds facing the demons and monsters of the mansion with unique objectives, buffs, and curses that will test both your mettle and teamwork.

Gameplay is basic but simple to get to grips with – run, turn on your torch, turn off your torch, shoot.

I’d have like to have seen speedier running as I feel this would make the game even more chaotic at its choke-points, but it’s still decent.

And the graphics are okay but won’t be bothering any triple-A game makers any time soon.

I lost connection online a couple times but generally it worked well.

For longevity there are other modes like Thief in the Night, where three fearless teams of two scour the mansion for valuable skulls to deposit into a vault. When the last vault closes, the team with the most value accumulated wins.

Overall, a unique and fresh-feeling multiplayer shooter.

One that’s neither graphically outstanding or anything other than well-trodden gameplay-wise.

However its unique hide-in-the-dark style and fun chaos are well worth a look for such a good price.

VERDICT 3.5/5