Sorry We're Closed review: Oozing with dreadful charm

Sorry We’re Closed, the debut work from developer à la mode Games, had my attention immediately. I first saw it via a demo at PAX East, and the spooky, surreal, and sexual vibes worked together to keep it on my mind since. I’ve now played the full game, and for the most part, Sorry We’re Closed delivered on every promise that demo made. This is one of the most memorable horror games I’ve seen, thanks to its use of color, humor, unconventional music, and surrealism on top of some distinct (for better and worse) combat mechanics.

Everything is mostly normal, kind of

Michelle’s life was pretty normal, all things considered. She lives in a small apartment in a building full of weirdos, works at a convenience store, and can’t get over her last relationship. Things take a turn for the surreal when she wakes up to a neon-colored demon sneaking into her room and getting right in her face. Turns out this whole area is connected to a demonic hotel run by The Duchess, whose rage-like pursuit of love is bringing more and more people into inescapable loops of torture. Michelle is the latest target, and is cursed with a Third Eye that lets her see one side from the other, whether she’s in the underworld or back on the surface. If she can’t find a way to defeat The Duchess, she’ll be just another victim of the demon’s self-defeating obsession.

Luckily Michelle has some help, as she isn’t the only person around trying to subvert The Duchess. Many of her own neighbors are not what they seemed, and how Michelle chooses to interact or work with a cast of very over the top characters determines how the story ends. Choosing a path will change your goals across the game’s four-day story, which involves who you choose who to help with their problems and how. The story itself is fairly simple, but the personalities, visuals, and overall strangeness of everything around you lend it an extra bit of flavor. It feels like Sorry We're Closed has surprisingly little to say, despite Michelle sometimes going into odd, character-breaking monologues after you make narrative choices.

Torture, demons, angels, and a cool local record shop

As the story goes you’ll end up in dungeon-like stages that feel more like a familiar, PS1-era survival horror game. You have to avoid monsters, solve puzzles that require you to find objects in a specific order, or use buttons and switches to operate dilapidated machinery. All the while you learn about a recent victim of The Duchess’ cruelty as they ultimately succumb to the curse and become the boss fight of the day. The stages are straightforward, but what sets Sorry We’re Closed apart is its strange, but stylish combat system. Michelle is introduced to Hellhound, a pistol that is bright red, has a mouth and teeth, and growls like an angry dog when reloaded. This gun can directly attack a demon’s heart, provided you can aim well and actually see the target.

That’s where Michelle’s powers come in. Activating her Third Eye makes a small area around her shift to the other dimension, which briefly stuns enemies inside while exposing their hearts. Hitting it causes the heart to move, keeps the demon stunned longer, and rewards you with a perfect combo if you hit enough times without missing or taking too long. This is a heck of an elaborate gimmick, and the first few times you engage in combat are exhilarating. It’s like Resident Evil stopping to turn into a flashy arcade game every time you fight a zombie. And as off-putting as it sounds, it actually fits in with the rest of this world’s unhinged visual language.

No run, only gun

Combat is really fun, until it isn’t. While you run around in third-person, aiming requires a shift to first-person. There’s a lot of time between pressing the aim button, watching Michelle raise her weapon, and getting to actually aim and shoot. You’re also locked into place while aiming, of course. So a big part of mastering the combat is figuring out the timing between all the moving pieces. It’s natural to want to stun first and aim, but it might be better to aim first, bait the monster, then light it up once it hobbles into range. There may also be situations in which stunning isn’t necessary, or even possible as certain enemy types can lock your Third Eye power. It’s more complex than it seems, which can make boss fights especially exciting as they find new ways to twist the rules and give you new scenarios to react to.

The whole thing falls apart when you’re asked to do crowd control. There are a few instances during the story when you’re forced to deal with huge groups of enemies in close quarters, and they’re miserable to get through. Especially when the groups have enemies that can grab you, knock you down, lock your powers, or reanimate after just a few seconds. One section had me charging generators with the Third Eye, while a nearly endless wave of enemies came at me. Another involves keeping another character alive while solving a puzzle at the same time. The first one especially was so brutal I almost gave up on the game entirely.

I looked for difficulty options, giving up on my dreams of becoming a professional Sorry We’re Closed speedrunner, and the option given is an infinite healing item. That certainly allowed me to brute force my way through combat encounters that were too much, but the violent clash between the slow, stationary, accuracy-demanding combat and the crowded action sequences sucked the joy out of the room whenever it appeared. It often felt like playing one game, having a good time, then another game dropping from the sky like those purple cubes in the show Reboot threatening to ruin everything if I failed.

Thankfully, Sorry We’re Closed only ran around six hours before I saw one of the endings. Those moments of anguish were not massive parts of the game, although they were gnarly roadblocks. Everything else, from the vibes to the storytelling, and even the combat when it was reasonable, were compelling to the end. I’m still curious about the other endings, but the trauma from that generator setpiece has me wanting to wait for possible adjustments or new settings in the future. Horror enthusiasts, especially those who revel in the weird, who are also secret gaming gunslingers and are cool with sudden spikes in difficulty will find a lot to like here.

Sorry We're Closed is available on November 14, 2024 for the PC. A code was provided by the publisher for this review.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.