Sorry We're Closed review: "Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill can't match this neon-soaked survival horror for its sheer inventiveness"

Is there anything worse than getting a little lost in the London Underground? Yes, as it happens – being trapped in that same underground’s demonic otherworld twin and having a bipedal little ratman shambling towards you about to tear your throat out. The monsters in Sorry We're Closed may be low-poly, but are still disturbingly detailed thanks to slick texture-work that echoes the biblical visuals of High Renaissance fresco painting.

But it’s not over yet. Playing as Michelle – rocking iconic bright blue hair and a pink fur coat combo – I can switch up the situation. With a snap of her fingers, her third eye opens, the jagged spikes and rusted floors giving way to the grimy-yet-normal metro we know, and the demon’s form is cast in neon-silhouette, a glowing heart revealed within. Aiming down sights with an equally demonic pistol (the hellhound – which growls on reload), I blast the heart, a dinging noise ringing out as it's shattered, and it’s stunned in a keyframe pose briefly as another heart appears. Like pinball – bling, bling, bling – I light it up, a “perfect” appearing on screen as it tumbles to the ground. That’s heartbreak.

Now the deliverer of heartbreak to demons, Michelle’s had her fair share of it. Spending three years in a daze after a bad breakup with a now-famous ex, who plays Epiphany Oxblood in the mega popular Dying Petals soap opera, she’s not sure what she’s still living for. Yet, something is off about the corner of London she lives in as she goes through the motions working her corner shop job and chatting with her local friends – the sense there's something lurking just out of sight.

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Killer Queen

It all spills over when Michelle encounters the Duchess, on the meet-cute-side of receiving a night terror with a demonic entity which is to say “still a terrifying experience”. They’re tall enough to need to duck through Michell’s front door, has bright pink neon skin, and a constant fanged snarl on their face.

The Duchess has become famous among the demon realm, as they pursue the solution to filling the gap left after the infamous Biblical fall from Heaven – an absence of love. The Duchess has been attempting to obtain it at any cost. Cursing Michelle with a third eye, it is their hope that this way Michelle can come to love them. Witnessing the Duchess with this altered sight, the hellish nightmare falls away to reveal a more idealized form (becoming scary in a whole other way).

Left to live with this curse, Michelle realizes that not only are some of her neighbors more deeply connected to the world of angels and demons than she thought, but that the Duchess has cursed others. If she's going to have any hope of lifting it, she needs to follow in the footsteps of what happened to her fellow cursed.

Punctuating these levels are moments to chat to everyone on the street on which you both live and work. The gorgeous low-poly designs are wonderfully expressive, and the writing is funny and sharp. Quickly, it becomes clear that many could use Michelle's assistance, giving you the chance to help them out as you complete your own quest.

Often, these come at the cost of others, and rarely do you feel like you're making the best choice. Largely the content you play remains the same, but the path you've taken smartly recontextualizes what happens and leads to unique endings – it's well done.

Anytime an invitation

Naturally, tracking down other cursed humans means rocking up to some deserted and dangerous locations and having to fight demons. While out on the street you walk around the real world you know, and only unveil the hidden one with your third eye. This is inverted in each level proper where you explore in the demon realm first, your third eye showing you the human equivalent. These spaces have been invaded by the nasty stuff.

Silent Hill is an obvious comparison point, with that first level in the Underground station impossible not to compare to Silent Hill 4's own subway opening. Industrial soundscapes add to the atmosphere in a very similar way, too. While each level has a distinct visual identity, the demon realm versions are always rusted, gross, and punctuated with instruments of torture from walls of thorns to demon bodies hanging from chains.

For the most part the geometry is one-to-one. You can't pass by those aforementioned hanging bodies, and in the real-world you may reveal that space to be simply filing cabinets. However, some obstructions can only be navigated this way for some lightweight puzzle solving – thorns retract in the real-world, for instance, or it may reveal the safe path on a floor-spike trap.

The catch is your third-eye only ever reveals a small bubble of the other world around you, and you must walk while you have it active otherwise it deactivates. Walking through thorns is one thing, but doing so while an enemy you can't kill through normal means lumbers your way while scraping a big knife and trying not to break out into a sprint is another.

Gunpowder, gelatine

Using that power to reveal the glowing weak spots of enemies is also another double-edged rusty sword. For starters, it means you have to let them get close to use it, and for another, they will only take damage through direct hits to those hearts, your bullets otherwise passing through them. While enemies can be shot like normal without the third-eye, you need to deactivate it to blast at distance otherwise your shots fizzle out of existence.

It's a terrific twist on the Resident Evil 4-style "stand-your-ground" action, as you must plant your feet to aim – going from third-person Silent Hill 2-like navigation with fixed cameras to first-person shooting. You trade the greater accuracy of being close to enemies for the chance to deal extra damage, and as the heart weak spots move around a demon's body with each hit you have to pay attention to chain your shots together to finish them off. Activate your third-eye when a demon is already in range, and they'll receive a small stun you can use to your advantage to clear groups or get the drop on an enemy. With a slight stun each time they're hit in the heart, you'll sometimes have to use that to juggle a group in one go.

Mechanically, it's extremely satisfying to get the drop on demons in this way, growing familiar with each one's pattern of hearts and beginning to feel like you're bossing around the forbidden realm. Yet once they start jabbing you, you'll quickly feel the pain (and have to chug water to recover health). The third-eye doesn't just add a really cool way of exploring two versions of an environment in real-time, but it's vital towards introducing this whole new cadence of survival horror shooting that almost always ends up leading to encounters that feel scary, clutch, and satisfying.

It's got the kind of punk rock flavor you might expect from Suda51's best works, applied to a mesh between Silent Hill and Resident Evil that manages to evolve beyond those games. The rhythm of play really is that transformative. Any fan of those games needs to try Sorry We're Closed to marvel at the creativity in play.

Currently the controls are tuned to be a bit easier with mouse-and-keyboard on PC (where I played), but it also feels pretty good with a controller, if a bit tougher to keep up with combos just due to the longer aiming time. Though I'm told by the publisher this is still being fine-tuned.

Boss fights pull this all together at the end of each stage. Only properly able to be damaged by Heartbreaker shots, you have to chain attacks to charge this meter before initiating the blast, where time freezes and Michelle pulls out a comically large gun, the world becoming a stark contrast of silhouetted black shapes against neon pink as you absolutely demolish a larger heart (many bosses have about three of these). These clashes feel high-impact not just because of the larger action, but because the atmospheric soundscapes give way to thumping vocal tracks that lyrically play into the situation. All underscored, of course, by coming face-to-face with new facets of emotional turmoil.

That's what Sorry We're Closed is all about. Bright neon colors. High impact, inventive mechanics. And emotionally charged introspection. Rather than clashing, its immaculate vibes and almost arcadey shooting suit the dourer, sadder aspects wonderfully – it's all about the space between.

Need to get through more terrible situations? Our best survival horror games list is for you! Or more interested in love? Our best dating sims might offer something a little different.