IN SOUND MIND LENGTH SERIES

To give you an idea of the early scare tactics, there are a handful of maybe imagined, maybe real glimpses of something moving past your periphery. But in this case, it feels more intentional, due to the story. Ordinarily, I’d call that a bad thing for a psychological horror game, and for you, it might be a real drawback. The longer In Sound Mind goes, the less spooky it becomes - but the first couple hours are creepy. Released: Septem(PS5, Xbox, PC), TBA 2021 (Switch)

IN SOUND MIND LENGTH SERIES

In Sound Mind (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Nintendo Switch) It’s a wonderfully cheesy touch, and I never got sick of it. No, really, it’s kind of hilarious - there’s this deep-voiced entity who hounds you the entire game and constantly rings you up just to talk trash and get a rise out of the protagonist. There are sneaky mannequin shenanigans, specters who stalk you while you’re scrounging for puzzle solutions and hidden items, and lots of random phone calls that you can freely hang up on. And on the surface, it seems like In Sound Mind might run the risk of being too samey, but it actually goes to some wild and original places over its 10- to 12-hour runtime. Admittedly, across the board, there have been diminishing returns. It’s not what I was expecting based on the kinds of games we’ve gotten from this genre in the last decade.

So even though I was a bit unsure of In Sound Mind, a small-team first-person psychological horror adventure, I was eager to go for it. It’s not even October yet, and I’m already looking for excuses to squeeze more horror movies and games into my life.

In sound mind length