The Mortuary Assistant

The Mortuary Assistant
Developer(s)	DarkStone Digital
Publisher(s)	DreadXP
Designer(s)	Brian Clarke
Engine	Unity[1]
Platform(s)	Windows Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	Windows August 2, 2022 Switch April 20, 2023 PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S August 2, 2024
Genre(s)	Horror
Mode(s)	Single-player

The Mortuary Assistant is a 2022 horror game developed by DarkStone Digital and published by DreadXP. Set in 1998 in a small town in Connecticut, players control a newly hired assistant at a haunted mortuary.

Players control Rebecca Owens, an assistant at a mortuary who embalms corpses under the watch of her boss, Raymond Delver.^[2] Players must engage in the mundane aspects of this job while avoiding demonic possession in the haunted mortuary. This involves jump scares and puzzles. PC Gamer described it as "more or less a walking simulator with some haunted scenery".^[3] It is played from a first-person perspective.^[4] Players must correctly identify which corpses are possessed, the demon possessing them, and perform the correct exorcism to survive.^[5] This process is timed, as indicated by a set of Post-It notes to show the progress of the demon possessing Rebecca. It has multiple endings,^[3] and a new ending was added in July 2023.^[2] The story is procedurally generated, but the game remembers which vignettes the player has seen and shows different ones in each playthrough.^[6]

In 1998, Rebecca Owens arrives at the local River Fields mortuary in Connecticut in order to start her new job as the assistant to her old teacher and owner of the mortuary, Raymond Delver. However, during her review, Rebecca experiences some strange phenomena and Raymond decides to send her home early. Later that night, Raymond calls Rebecca back for an emergency night shift, but when she arrives, Raymond locks her in the mortuary and informs her that a demon is attempting to possess her. The only way to stop it is to find the cadaver the demon is hiding in, use a special ritual to bind the demon to the cadaver, and then burn it in the mortuary's incinerator, all while performing her regular duties of properly embalming the cadavers for burial. Rebecca is meanwhile hampered by the demon, who will try to interfere with her work through hallucinations and manipulating her senses. If Rebecca survives the night, Raymond explains now that she has been targeted by a demon, it will continue to haunt her for the rest of her life, so she has no choice but to continue working at the mortuary to ward it away. After Rebecca survives the second night, Raymond admits that a demon attempted to possess him as well, and he has been continually haunted by them which is why he is researching a way to permanently banish them.

On subsequent nights, Rebecca can eventually learn that Raymond keeps a possessed woman, Valery, locked in the mortuary basement and collects her blood to produce the Reagent needed to carry out the binding rituals. Despite reservations, Rebecca continues working in the mortuary and the demon begins taunting her by forcing her to relive memories of her past, where her mother died of a drug overdose and she subsequently became a drug addict nearly dying of an overdose herself, resulting in her father's death when he tried to save her. Realizing the demon is trying to use her guilt over her father's death against her, Rebecca can finally come to terms with his death and briefly witnesses a vision of her father who assures her she is not at fault for his death.

The game's final ending is triggered when Rebecca attempts to banish the demon possessing Valery. However, the ritual fails and Valery attacks Rebecca. Raymond intervenes and his shirt is torn open to reveal a mysterious sigil drawn on his chest, which destroys Valery and part of the sigil is burned away. Rebecca accuses Raymond of hiding more secrets from her and she angrily storms out of the basement. After Rebecca leaves, Raymond enters a hidden chamber where his possessed mother is chained up. He cuts off a piece of his mother's flesh and uses it to restore the sigil. All the while, the demon taunts Raymond by pointing out his source of Reagent is gone, but Raymond remains committed to fighting the demons.

Brian Clarke developed The Mortuary Assistant himself, based in Connecticut.^[3] He had previously worked on massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Clarke's influences included creepy online videos and found footage films, especially Paranormal Activity. A prototype was released in 2020, and Clarke was surprised to find that many people wanted a full simulation of embalming. After researching embalming, he mostly implemented it realistically. Some aspects were streamlined for time, and he used archaic procedures when he thought they made scenes creepier.^[6] DreadXP released it on Windows on August 2, 2022, and on Switch on April 20, 2023.^[7] The game was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on August 2, 2024, alongside an update containing improvements and added features to the base game.^[8] A film adaptation was announced in September 2022. DreadXP said it will focus on "the overall narrative" rather than replicating specific gameplay elements or endings.^[4]

On Metacritic, The Mortuary Assistant received mixed reviews for Windows and positive reviews for PlayStation 5.^[10][9] On release, it became a bestseller on Steam.^[15]

Despite saying that it is short and "a little rough", Joel Franey of GamesRadar+ said its atmosphere makes up for these shortcomings,^[5] and it would later be included in list of top horror games by GamesRadar+.^[16] Cass Marshall, writing for Polygon, called it "a little clunky" and said the puzzles can be confusing, but still "delivers a fun set of scares" while being a satisfying simulation.^[17] Andrew Heaton of Rely on Horror praised the game for it's unique setting, tapping into the fear of death, but found the gameplay somewhat repetitive and encountered some technical issues.^[14] Similarly, Harrison Abott of Bloody Disgusting praised the game's content but claimed to encounter many technical issues.^[11]

Reviewing the PlayStation 5 version, Jordan Biordi of CG Magazine called the gameplay loop "incredibly effective", but complained that the gamepad controls were subpar, concluding that the PS5 version was "vastly inferior" to the PC version.^[12] Similarly, Timothy Nunes of Playstation Universe wrote in his review that, despite the interesting concept, he wished that he "had just played it on PC" due to its poor controls.^[13]