Mortanis Prisoners
Developer: Alexey Bulgakov & Vladimir Zlobin
Publisher: Honor Games
Released on: Xbox Series S/X (reviewed), PlayStation 5
While there have been a few horror games set during World War II, this latest release (at least on Xbox and PlayStation – it came out last summer on PC) from the two-person dev team of Alexey Bulgakov and Vladimir Zlobin puts the protagonist in a German prisoner-of-war camp.
It’s 1944, the Nazis are on the run and have abandoned the camp, leaving it to the monstrosities it helped create. Waking up in the morgue of an underground hospital, you are Justina, the sole survivor with one thing on her mind: escape. Only, it’s not human guards trying to stop her, but a series of bizarre puzzles and shambling monsters, the latter redolent of Resident Evil 4’s Regenerators.
It’s a potentially fascinating backdrop—mixing the real-life horror of the Nazi final solution with a strong science-gone-wrong theme—but one requiring a certain sensitivity. Justina soon discovers things aren’t quite as they seem, the ethereal ghosts of both prisoners and guards appearing throughout the camp, and a gelatinous mass of writhing tortured souls preventing her from jumping out of the first available window. The inevitable written notes, from both staff and captives, reveal a planned mass escape, encouraged by the subtle reduction of staff numbers as the Nazis retreat, and the resultant reprisals. Thrown in the mix is a series of unwise experiments, the results of which stalk the corridors and rooms of the camp.
Fortunately, Justina soon comes across a pistol (a Luger by the look of it) and, later, a shotgun. From the hospital, she ventures to the administration building above and an industrial complex, but remains unable to reach the outside, bar the occasional balcony. Backpacks increase her inventory slots, bandages and first aid kits recover health, while mysteriously ornate items such as stone eagles and paintings provide solutions to the weirdly obtuse puzzles scattered around the camp.
It’s a good base for an intense and claustrophobic horror game, but unfortunately, Mortanis Prisoners—which translates from Latin as either Dead Prisoners or the confusing Prisoners Of The Dead—blows it. There’s some atmosphere in its odd events and wartime tropes, but the game’s weak storyline never goes anywhere specific, there’s a thoroughly bemusing final boss battle with the camp commandant, and graphical glitches abound. Worse, the developers have slacked in their English translation. While I appreciate it’s not their first language, brutal grammatical errors, such as ‘leaved’, don’t help with immersion, nor does the constant bleeding of text beyond the page boundary.
Mortanis Prisoners’ puzzles are also tepid, with one particular teaser involving a set of rotatable statues seemingly completed by just moving one statue in any random direction. This, and many other actions, often elicit a ‘what the?!’ or, worse, a shoulder shrug as Justina’s exploration reveals random, unexplained events. Maybe that’s the point, but it doesn’t make for satisfying gaming.
I wanted to like Mortanis Prisoners, to feel the terror of exploring its despicable environment while being hunted by unspeakable horrors. Sadly, the execution doesn’t match the location, making it a missed opportunity, especially considering its developers’ previous experience in the genre.
If you’re after an uncomplicated and short horror experience, you might get some satisfaction from Mortanis Prisoners. For everyone else, stick to Amnesia: The Bunker.
