Martha is dead, but perhaps you already guessed this from the title. Her body floated in the muddy waters of a lake. To see her from a distance was her sister Giulia, who after a breathless run dived and brought her body back to shore.
There seemed to be no signs of violence, not even the trace of a rope around the neck or on the wrists but the pale skin made one think of an event that had occurred several hours earlier. It was probably an accident … but why was Martha wearing her dress?
“Nothing happened, everything will be fine, Martha is NOT dead,” he kept repeating to himself. The shock was great but never as much as that of the parents who, deceived by the dress, exchanged the two sisters: the one who died for them was Giulia. Believing it was not difficult and perhaps it was less painful, after all the favorite was always Martha.
On the incipit of Martha is Dead, Carlo Lucarelli could base an entire episode of his famous Blu Notte investigative format. We got to try a little taste of the new game from the Italian team LKA, which a handful of years ago made itself known for another title with a strong atmosphere: The Town of Light. In this new horror-yellow effort, Italian folklore blends once again with real life atmospheres and real events, in this case we will be immersed in the final stages of the Second World War.
The historical research and the faithful reproduction of the atmospheres of the time are once again one of the cornerstones of this production and can be appreciated already in the first hours. The radios pass excerpts of the events that are tearing Europe apart, interspersed with popular songs and peasant ballads. The tragic event of the death of Martha (or Giulia?) Leads the protagonist-survivor to take on her role, not hers, while the remorse of what she has decided to do with her begins to haunt her since the day of her sister’s funeral .
Nightmare visions alternate with scenes of everyday life, difficult but simple and seasoned with good feelings. The good, however, is always only one side of the coin and evil does not take long to reveal itself in the dreams that distress the rest of Giulia (or Martha?). His sister’s face stripped of her skin and turned into a mask. A forest wrapped in a damp and pitch-black mantle, on which excerpts of phrases stand out that form messages belonging to a still pure conscience.
The stylistic code and the psychological depth of Martha is Dead are immediately evident. This time LKA wants to dig even deeper inside us, scratching the soul with a story that not only aims to scare us but also to make us think. There is nothing certain: the mystery will probably unravel before our eyes with studied slowness, giving us conflicting clues and then surprise us at the last moment. The gameplay is once again a tool stripped to the bone and shaped in a way that suggests that in this story we will not be just spectators.
The suggestive and bucolic Tuscan countryside and the last blows of the conflict create an interesting contrast and once again seem to give few points of reference to us players-spectators. Large-scale death incorporates other smaller but no less disturbing and painful deaths.
This time the developers seem to want to tread even more decisively on violence, both material and psychological. The technical means are not exceptional, at least not up to the most famous teams, but the result in visual terms is still appreciable and even the “dimensions” of the project seem more generous.
Martha is Dead is a narrative experience and for this reason it will largely follow a rather linear trend, but already in the preliminary version that we tried it was possible to guess the presence of more open sections that grant a wider freedom of movement to the player.
The main “mission” will be interspersed with secondary “quests” that will reveal more accurate details both on the story of Martha and Giulia and on the events surrounding this unfortunate family. For this purpose there is also the interaction with simple means of transport, which will allow us to visit the countryside surrounding the farmhouse more quickly. This will in fact represent the central fulcrum of the exploration component, a sort of refuge to which we can return at any time.
Photographs also seem to play a central role in both the story and gameplay. From the beginning, photos of all kinds crowd the walls, emerge from the pages of the newspapers and above all become the main actresses thanks to the camera that Giulia can use during her “family investigations”. At the very beginning it was she who allowed her to locate Martha’s body in the lake and we are sure that later this technique will be useful on several occasions.
Just as the dense fog surrounding this intriguing and disturbing story began to thin out, the demo ended leaving us eager to find out more. Could the causes of Martha’s death really have been natural or will otherworldly forces come into play? How will the winds of war affect (or have affected) history?
Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to give the right answers to all these questions, and many more. The release of Martha is Dead is scheduled for February 24 on PC and on new and old generation Sony and Microsoft consoles.
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