Skip to content
Withering Rooms sees you heading round Victorian mansion Mostyn House, a place that doesn’t so much grow on you – but AROUND you, as the rooms are procedurally generated each night and chop & change.
Set off on your path, meet the residents – most of which are out to kill you, since they’re very grisly and aren’t shy of dispatching you as quickly as possible, learn more about the place from one or two who are actually on your side, and find keys, herbs and items to craft other items, and weapons, in a bid to stay alive.
I was really looking forward to this because it’s a 2.5D game, which reminded me of the style behind the brilliant 2018 game, Iris.Fall. However, it’s only really 2.5D to a degree, in that you walk left and right across each room – occasionally ducking out of the way to avoid monsters by hiding under a bed, or coming across all ‘Philip Schofield’ and staying in a closet. It’s not like, say, Little Big Planet, where you frequently had to move in and out of the screen in order to
Also, it comes across more like a ‘walking simulator: go into every room you can find, in order to find weapons and items to progress – even if it’s just a key that’ll take you into a previously unlocked room. Given that your walking is not exactly fast, it all feels very… pedestrian.
I can see from the Steam reviews that a lot of people appear to like it, but I played this for two hours, and just can’t carry on. Iris.Fall had a number of puzzles to get your head around, while Withering Rooms is just walking about, avoiding baddies, then avoiding more baddies, and so on, until you die. The only slight plus was that they’re not completely thick, and can follow you from room to room, as you attempt to escape them. Even if you get through and close the door on one, you can’t lock them out.
Withering Rooms was originally released as Early Access in 2022, but is now available in the full release with a New Game+ mode.
Also check out the gameplay below, and at the time of posting this review, I’m still adding videos daily. There will be 5 in all.
Thanks to our friends at Perp Games for the review code for this game.
Withering Rooms is out today on the digital stores for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Steam.
Important info:
- Developer: Moonless Formless
- Publisher: Perp Games
- Players: single-player
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.