I’m always intrigued when a game goes in a direction that’s a bit daring on a tasteful level. Mortanis Prisoners caught my attention as the plot of the game and its setting were pushing the envelope. A horror game that takes place in a Concentration Camp in WWII.
Mortanis Prisoners follows a woman who was part of the Polish Resistance and was working with the Germans till her cover was blown, as a result, she was sent to a Concentration Camp. Some time later, she wakes in the morgue to find herself alone and having to escape the supernatural horrors that now dwell in the already horrifying camp.
Now, onto the game itself! The controls for Mortanis Prisoners are a bit tricky, but once you get used to them, you’ll be fine. A tutorial would have been nice.
When it comes to the sound design, it’s 50/50; some sound effects are good, some are a little too loud and obnoxious, so the mixing could have used a little work. The art is hard to place; it’s shockingly outdated-looking, which makes the glitching animations and stuttering shocking.
Speaking of glitching. I’m at one point in the game where I can’t do anything, as the game crashes at this one point in the game. Gameplay-wise, you can pick some options at the start of the game, where you can have something like cheats on. You are given options to skip puzzles, which kinda makes them pointless. For being a horror, it lacked scares. There’s no sense of danger or urgency, as many horror games do.
Overall, I really don’t know how to feel about this game. The premise was promising, but the execution of it fell flat. If you told me this was a playable concept for a game, I would have agreed and been OK with that, but the way it’s packaged and sold here, it’s a letdown. Cheap graphics, bad sound mixing, possible AI voice acting, and the fact of using a concentration camp as a game setting, while not paying respect to historical accuracy (The main character would be bald), and the game crashing glitch really sours the mood.
I would have to give Mortanis Prisoners a 4/10; an attempt was made, but more of one would have been better.
