Midnight Murder Club Review Summary

Last updated: 2025-08-17
  • Excellent multiplayer with guest pass feature
  • Engaging wildcards and diverse game modes
  • Tense, accessible core gameplay with stealth
  • Limited content and high price point
  • Low player count and dead lobbies
  • Mandatory PSN account login issues
Midnight Murder Club header

Emotions

What players like:

Common complaints:

Gameplay feedback:

Performance notes:

Recommendations:

Other player notes:

Review evidence

Why players say this

What players like

Excellent Multiplayer & Guest Pass: Players overwhelmingly praise the game's fun and chaotic multiplayer experience, especially when played with friends. A significant factor contributing to this enjoyment is the 'Guest Pass' system, which allows one person to purchase the game and invite up to five friends to play for free, making it highly accessible and a great party game.

Engaging Wildcards & Diverse Modes: The 'Wildcards' game mode is frequently highlighted as a favorite, adding significant variety and chaotic fun to matches. Players appreciate how this mode, along with other diverse game modes, keeps the gameplay fresh and prevents it from becoming stale.

Tense & Accessible Core Gameplay: The game's core mechanics, centered around stealth, hide-and-seek, and shooting in the dark, are highly effective at creating tension and engaging gameplay. The simple, intuitive controls make the game easy to pick up for players of all skill levels.

Strong Concept & Atmosphere: Players recognize the game's strong potential and appreciate its unique concept, particularly the immersive atmosphere created by navigating pitch-black environments with limited light. The game is seen as well-developed for an Early Access title.

Polished & Technically Stable: The game is noted for its technical polish and stability, with many players reporting a lack of significant bugs or issues. This contributes to a smooth and enjoyable gaming experience.

Common complaints

Limited content and high price: Players feel the game lacks content, variety, and progression, making it repetitive and bland. The current price is considered too high for the limited offerings, and recent updates have reportedly removed modes, further reducing value.

Low player count and dead lobbies: The game suffers from a severely low player count, making it difficult or impossible to find public matches. This issue is compounded by the need for 6 players per match, leading to a 'dead' online community and concerns about the game's longevity.

Mandatory PSN account login issues: A significant number of players are frustrated by the mandatory PSN account login, citing issues with account verification, repeated logins, and general inconvenience. This requirement has prevented some from playing and deterred others from purchasing the game.

Critical technical and performance issues: Many players report critical technical issues, including frequent crashes, network errors preventing login or gameplay, and poor optimization leading to unplayable performance on PC. Basic features like full-screen support and key rebinding are also missing.

Unwanted mandatory bots: The forced inclusion of bots in lobbies with fewer than 6 players is a major point of contention. Players find these bots lifeless, sometimes too deadly, and they detract from the desired multiplayer experience, especially in private lobbies.

Gameplay and performance

Stealth and Light Mechanics: The core gameplay revolves around stealth and light management in a dark environment. Players use a flashlight for visibility but risk revealing their position, encouraging a hide-and-seek style of play.

Diverse Game Modes & Wildcards: The game offers multiple modes, including Free For All and Team Deathmatch, with unique 'Wildcard' modifiers that are voted on by the lobby, adding variety and a party-game feel.

Proximity Voice Chat Importance: Proximity voice chat is a significant feature, allowing players to locate others by sound and enhancing the social and immersive aspects of the game. Sound is a crucial element for gameplay.

Simple Party Game Mechanics: The game's mechanics are considered simple and not overly deep, contributing to its identity as a casual 'party game'.

One-Shot Kill Mechanic: The game features a 'one-shot kill' mechanic, where players die or are downed with a single bullet, emphasizing precision and tactical engagement.

Mixed performance feedback: Player feedback on performance is mixed. Some users report significant lag and poor optimization, while others with good setups achieve high frame rates. This suggests potential optimization issues for a subset of hardware configurations.

Graphic filter exploit failed: The attempt to use graphic filters for an unfair advantage was unsuccessful. This indicates that the game's anti-cheat or rendering system effectively prevented such exploits.

Recommendations

Highly Recommended Party Game: Many players highly recommend the game, especially when played with friends. They see great potential for it to be a fun party game and are excited for future updates and content.

Appreciates Guest Pass Feature: The guest pass feature is highly appreciated by players, who commend the developers for its inclusion and generosity.

Needs More Polish/Optimization: Some players suggest waiting for the game to be more polished and optimized, particularly regarding PC issues, before purchasing or fully committing.

Consider Sale or Refund: Some advice suggests buying the game on sale or trying it with the intention to refund if it doesn't meet expectations.

Needs More Players: There's a general desire for the game to attract more players to improve public match availability.

Other review notes

Desire for more content: Players are eager for new content, specifically more maps, game modes, and wildcards to enhance variety and longevity. There's a strong desire for continued development and updates to keep the game fresh.

Early Access status: The game is in Early Access and developed by an indie studio, which implies that issues are expected and that there is a development roadmap. Players are encouraged to engage with the community and developers.

Nostalgia and longevity: The game evokes nostalgia for classic titles like Goldeneye and The Ship, and some believe it has better longevity than games like Knockout City.

Friend pass concerns: There's a concern that the friend pass system might negatively impact sales, and player enjoyment can vary depending on having a group of friends to play with.

Need for anti-cheat: There is a suggestion for the implementation of an anti-cheat system, indicating potential concerns about fair play.