Excellent indie horror game Mothered has a small sequel hiding in its demo Rock Paper Shotgun Support us Join our newsletter Visit our store Sign in / Create account If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Excellent indie horror game Mothered has a small sequel hiding in its demo Might be my favourite horror game of 2021? News by Alice O'Connor Associate Editor Published on Sept. 13, 2022 2 comments I only just realised, while mentioning the dev's next game, that we never posted about excellent indie horror game Mothered. Not to be confused with the unrelated Remothered games, it's the tale of a young girl returning home after surgery to find everything is weird and her mother is some sort of eerie mannequin. It might be my favourite horror game of 2021? Now's a good time to raise Mothered because: 1) it finally has a demo for newcomers; 2) for veterans, that demo actually hides a secret expansion continuing the game's story. The first-person explore-o-adventure-a-horror launched last Christmas Eve, so we missed it at the time because we were all comatose on cocoa. And then... ? I don't know. Sorry, reader dear. I'll make up for it now. Mothered puts us in the little body of Liani, a girl who comes home after serious surgery and, the blurb says, "is met with a strange mannequin claiming to be her mother." Across snippets of days joined up with timeskips, Liana explores the family home, spends time with Mother, tries to remember who she was, and tries to figure out what's going on. The game drips unease and oddity, demonstrating great restraint as tension mounts. A very clever and careful game. It is an absolute joy to experience this slow-burning discomfort, especially after recently seeing too many PT knock-offs, trash jumpscares, and downright embarrassing 'mature' 'psychological' horrors. Mothered looks and sounds great too, with good mock-VHS effects, striking retro title cards and text and such, some perfectly unnerving sound and music, and... Mother. One specific section felt tedious at the time but as I look back, tch, overall Mothered is great. I'm still pleased every time it creeps back into my thoughts. Sorry, Mother You can see for yourself through the demo which arrived as part of the latest Haunted PS1 Demo Disc at the end of August. I'm still working my way through those demos, so I might have more to point out later. This demo contains the start of the game, unless it detects that you've already completed the full version of Mothered on your PC. In that case, it quietly transforms into a new experience (a fact which comes to my attention through YouTuber "supergreatfriend"). This hidden "DLC-quel", named Mothered: Home, continues the story with new strange and awful things to discover, and maybe hints at what's coming. Mothered is the second game from (mostly) one-man dev Enigma Studio, following 2018's The Enigma Machine. The next will be Echostasis, launching later this year. They all seem connected in wonderful and terrible ways. If you like Mothered's demo, the full game is available from Steam or Itch.io for £7/€8/$10. A free prologue demo for Echostasis is up on Steam and Itch too. More News Jack King-Spooner's next handcrafted game has a teaser demo out Judero brings chat and action in the Scottish Borders Alice O'Connor 17 hours ago 1 If you were hoping for any Overwatch 2 balance changes then you'll have to wait until season two The next season begins in December CJ Wheeler 18 hours ago 3 The Dead Space remake will chuck random Necromorphs at you as you wander the Ishimura In space, no one can hear you proper bricking it CJ Wheeler 18 hours ago 8 Valve register mysterious new Neon Prime trademark in the US It doesn’t seem to be for a particularly colourful Steam Deck CJ Wheeler 20 hours ago 11 Latest Articles What are we all playing this weekend? Well? Alice O'Connor an hour ago 21 Past Wordle answers Here's an archive of previous Wordle words Ollie Toms 2 hours ago 1 Wordle answer today (Saturday 15 October) Hints and the answer to today's Wordle word Rebecca Jones 9 hours ago Overwatch 2 hero tier list Which are the best heroes in Overwatch 2? Ollie Toms 16 hours ago Supporters Only You're probably better than me at One Many Nobody You go on without… uh, you? Sin Vega 17 hours ago Supporter podcast - The Nate Files episode 13: dry bones Bad science is also FUN science! Alice Bell 18 hours ago Japanese dating show Love Wagon has surprising parallels with Yakuza and Persona My new obsession Ed Thorn 2 days ago If you're hankering after Bayonetta 3, Valkyrie Elysium might be a good substitute It's not out on PC until next month, but the console demo has been a surprise charmer Katharine Castle 1 week ago 4 We've been talking, and we think that you should wear clothes Total coincidence, but we sell some clothes Buy RPS stuff here