MOTHERED - A ROLE-PLAYING HORROR GAME

Introduction

MOTHERED - A ROLE-PLAYING HORROR GAME puts players in the shoes of Liana, a young girl who returns home after major surgery to find a mannequin claiming to be her mother. Developed and published by ENIGMA STUDIO, it launched on Steam on 24 December 2021 at NZ$12.39 as part of a loosely connected trilogy with the developer's other titles. Nearly four years later, its 312 English-language reviews sit at 91% positive, Very Positive. This review read all 28 negative reviews in that sample alongside a range of the positive side.

A story and atmosphere almost everyone agrees on

What's striking about this review sample is how rarely the negative reviews dispute the game's core craft. "This is not a mannequin haunted house game. It is a haunting look at grief that will stick with you long after it's over," reads one enthusiastic positive review, and even reviewers who ultimately don't recommend the game tend to agree with that framing rather than argue against it. "I very much enjoyed the atmosphere, pacing and intentionally confusing writing of the game, to a point," reads one detailed negative review, going on to praise "the constant 'WHAT IS GOING ON?!?' and mix of mild scares" before pivoting to its actual complaint. Sound design and the retro-tinged visual style draw similarly consistent praise on both sides of the aggregate.

The apple orchard problem

Where the sample turns decisively is on a single, specific structural choice, and it's remarkable how often the exact same sequence comes up by name from reviewers who otherwise loved the game. "Great game and story, but please change the apple section. It drives me nuts every time i do it," reads one positive review. A 52-hour reviewer, in a review that otherwise calls the story and tone "phenomenal," names the same culprit: "one single thing pulled me out of the experience: the apple orchard. you have to replay wednesday three times at least in a standard playthrough." On the negative side, the same complaint sharpens into a dealbreaker: "looking for apples for 20 mins?" one reviewer wrote, calling the full-price ask "a crazy ripoff" given how much of the runtime the search consumes. A separate, related complaint concerns the actions needed to trigger proper story progression at all — several reviewers describe them as obtuse and tied to easily-missed, specific moments, forcing a full restart when missed.

Real, if less common, technical issues

Beyond the apple-orchard complaint, a smaller number of reviewers report more serious problems. One reviewer describes being softlocked out of their ending entirely, watching another player's playthrough trigger correctly at the exact same point theirs failed, with no explanation or fix found. Separately, at least one reviewer notes there's no in-game way to quit the game — you have to force-close it via Steam or Task Manager — and specifically flags that the same issue exists in the developer's other title, Echostasis, suggesting a shared, unaddressed engine-level oversight rather than an isolated bug.

How much of the story most players actually see

Steam's own achievement data suggests most players who start MOTHERED do experience a meaningful share of its content: 93.1% clear the earliest story achievement, and even the game's harder, alternate-ending-related goals sit in the 40-45% range before dropping to 29.2% for the hardest — a far gentler decline than many short narrative games see, consistent with a story that holds attention even through its more tedious stretch.

Verdict

MOTHERED tells a genuinely effective, atmospheric horror story that this review's full read of its negative-review sample confirms almost no one disputes on its own terms — the writing, sound, and visual identity are real strengths by wide consensus, including from reviewers who don't ultimately recommend the game. What holds it back from a stronger score is one specific, well-documented structural flaw: a tedious, obscurely-clued replay sequence gating the true ending that even the game's fans single out by name as its clearest weak point. Worth playing for the story alone; go in with patience for the apple orchard.