Midnight Walk: A Stop-Motion Inspired Cozy Horror Game

Just a few minutes into my initial experience with The Midnight Walk, a realization hit me: Is this the game itself, not just another cutscene? To my surprise, what I was witnessing looked like a beautifully crafted stop-motion animation film. However, as it turned out, the talented folks at MoonHood Studios were showcasing actual, real-time gameplay.

The Midnight Walk’s uncanny resemblance to stop-motion films such as Phil Tippett’s Mad God or those iconic old Tool music videos comes partly from its use of tangible, physical materials for characters, monsters, and settings. Klaus Lyngeled from MoonHood reveals that the team handmade around 700 objects, which they 3D-scanned to morph them into digital models. The characters have that characteristic stop-motion style stutter, and with the camera’s shallow depth of field, the illusion is completed.

Lyngeled and Olov Redmalm, the creative minds behind the game, describe this first-person, narrative-driven puzzle adventure as a “cozy horror adventure.” It’s filled with quirky characters and amiable monsters. Across its various fairy tale-inspired chapters, one core theme weaves through them: the blend of warmth and contrast, a journey to light up a shadowy world.

Your adventure in The Midnight Walk begins with the main character, the Burnt One, clawing their way up from a grave and piecing themselves back together. As you tread along the Midnight Walk, you’re accompanied by Potboy, a whimsical, endearing creature who serves as your guide. With its unique flame-carrying brazier, Potboy aids in lighting torches, providing both illumination and a means to fend off adversaries in this surreal realm.

Throughout this adventure, there are moments of stealth and puzzles to unravel. Intriguingly, there’s even a mechanic specifically for shutting your eyes, allowing you to immerse in the surroundings through sound alone. (MoonHood highly recommends experiencing the game with headphones for the full binaural audio experience.) There’s a touch of “gunplay” too—when I saw the Burnt One’s weapon that fires lit matches, it offered both combat capability against beasts and puzzle-solving potential.

Although much of The Midnight Walk encapsulates an air of “coziness,” primarily courtesy of Potboy’s presence, the game doesn’t shy away from delving into horror. The creatures range from scuttling cycloptic beings to giant, daunting spider-like figures. There are unsettling leather-skinned beings with stitched eyes and slug-like ferocities bristling with anger.

The game’s inspirations are clear—whether it’s the charm of Over the Garden Wall, the gothic allure of The Nightmare Before Christmas, the enigmatic worlds of David Lynch, or the classic intensity of Half-Life 2. Still, The Midnight Walk manages to carve out its own unique niche, a distinctive blend that stands apart from its predecessors. Suffice to say, MoonHood has crafted something intriguing and exciting, a revelation that only struck me a week ago.

Thankfully, the wait to dive into this mesmerizing world isn’t long. The Midnight Walk is slated for release on May 8, available on PlayStation 5 (with full VR2 support) and Windows PC through Steam.