A Promising Setting With Strong Horror Vibes
Mortanis Prisoners is a survival horror game set in a Third Reich concentration camp, where you must face both human cruelty and deeper supernatural nightmares as you fight to escape purgatory. On first impressions, the atmosphere pulled me in. The oppressive corridors, eerie lighting, and tense choreography of enemies brought Nacht der Untoten‑era Nazi zombie vibes that horror fans will instantly recognize.
Unfortunately, the story never quite lives up to that atmosphere. Your goal.. escaping purgatory, is clear, but the narrative between is often confusing. There are notes and scraps of lore scattered about, but they rarely form a coherent picture. The storytelling feels half‑baked at times, leaving more questions than answers. Its honestly just really bad.
Gameplay Holds Your Attention Despite Issues
Gameplay blends shooting with puzzles and some survival mechanics. The shooting isn’t bad, and it feels functional enough on Xbox Series X to keep you engaged. Accessibility options are decent and add some quality‑of‑life, but the balance between combat and puzzle exploration can be uneven.
There’s a lot of puzzles, perhaps too many—so the game can feel like you’re wandering aimlessly trying to find the next one. This padded my playtime (3–4 hours) well beyond the likely one‑hour core experience. Even when I wasn’t enjoying it, I couldn’t quite drop it, which says something about the pacing.
Visuals and Performance Are a Mixed Bag
The visuals are interesting. Some feature designs are genuinely cool and create moments worth remembering. However, frequent texture pop‑ins and glitches break immersion, especially when things look good for a second and then suddenly flicker. It even feels possible that some assets are AI‑generated, good enough at a glance, but inconsistent on closer inspection.
Performance on Xbox Series X wasn’t terrible, but once you start pushing through the latter half of the game, glitches and frame drops became far more common. Audio and visual issues piled up, and by the end, the experience was noticeably unraveling. It got really really bad, it was almost unplayable. I knew I was reaching the end, I slugged through.
Nostalgic But Not Fully Realized
While the atmosphere is strong and the backbone of the concept is solid, Mortanis Prisoners struggles to tie its elements together. The historical setting, horror influences, and puzzles are all interesting on paper, but a lack of narrative clarity and technical polish holds the game back from being truly great.
There’s potential here, and dedicated horror fans could find value in the experience, but most players will likely come away wishing they could forger it.
3/10
