A psychological horror with death as its main theme. You play as a man who cannot leave his home. Every day he tries to get his keys and open the door, he gets transported back to the bathroom mirror. As he attempts to escape, things become more unsettling as you progress. This is a first-person perspective game that does not hold your hand. It’s like a bad dream you keep having, but you get closer to the end each time you dream it. There isn’t any fighting or survival; it’s all about depression and feeling stuck in a situation you wish you weren’t in. There’s a lot of attention to detail, especially the sound effects. You can’t escape death, but maybe you can run away for a while. The title translates to “mourning” or “grief”, in case you were wondering.

Here’s what I liked:

Sharp and Detailed — There is no denying, once you start the game, you’ll see the beauty in detail. I’ve played a lot of horror where you walk around a house, and this one seemed just a little different. First, I noticed the view was a little bit longer looking, maybe to add some more depth perception. Your surroundings look crystal clear. When it’s dark, any hint of light is noticed and especially when it’s the blue hue, almost a creepy neon looking blue that invites you to your doom. There are a few special effects, maybe most notably on the little tow ambulances. They are part of a puzzle, but your first view of them might give you some awe, as the lighting effects from the toys are particularly great. Then there are some scenes that take you a bit more out of the “house” atmosphere. You walk through sand, it’s almost like you have a safe feeling, like finally, out of that terrible house. But at the same time, you know you have not escaped and will be there again soon.

Narrative Experience — If you want cliché, look nowhere else than a narrator. It almost always seems to be someone with a British accent. I can only imagine this is because it somehow sounds like an intelligent person. Maybe we associate that with TV, like Sherlock Holmes talking. I’m not entirely sure. That or it’s just Morgan Freeman, with a deep but calming voice. So yes, we again get a British accent. While it is a narrator of sorts, it also becomes the only being you actually talk to. It goes from describing what’s going on to a darker, more sinister entity. The cute accent fades away from your ears, not because it’s no longer an accent, but because it becomes something dark. That’s what your mind then focuses on. I suppose people who have those accents won’t notice this change as much, but for everyone else, it’s a transition you don’t realize has happened.

Colors in the Dark — While I mentioned the details put into the game before, I can’t help but mention how things look so good in the dark. Usually, a horror game tries to frighten you more with gross scenes of mutilated bodies and blood. There’s a much more calming way to creep you out. That’s giving you a brightness in the dark. There are these odd “ghost” type figures that look like they’re wearing sheets from an attic. But when they are shown, they are either seen with your flashlight or in areas where a bright red light shines on them. This gives you a feeling as if you’ve discovered something from a cult. Not entirely a monster you’re afraid that will attack you, but more of a preview of tragedy unfolding.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Depressing, But Do I Care? — I’ve played a lot of games that have depressing stories. I’ve felt many emotions over the years playing, and yes, I have cried during a scene in a game before. But it’s because I was driven to care first. While the theme in Luto might be sad, it doesn’t really hit any emotions for me. I lost a pet recently, but was not torn by the dog being lost by this character. I’ve lost a close relative (my nephew), yet the scenes mentioning the protagonist’s brother did not move me. The story was built for self-reflection, but it failed in bringing back those memories of my own life. It had a weak backstory, and the narrator monster (whatever it was) just annoyed me with a real try-hard attempt at being psychological and asking tough questions about life. Sure, there are deeper meanings sometimes, but in the end, they do nothing to progress your life. It’s just you, thinking about things too much and not living your best days ahead.

Unique but Time-Wasting Puzzles — Besides walking around and listening to the narrator, you will have a few things to solve in order to progress. While some of them are unique, I felt they were a bit of a time sink to make the game feel longer. One I got stuck in forever was with the ambulances I mentioned before. You had to walk through these portal-type doors that rewound time and made things go forward or backward. I was here for a while, walking through the doors, trying to get everything going right. In the end, I was supposed to let the ambulance push me through the path instead of walking it. This was in no way clear. There are a few instances where you just have to keep spotting the same item around a level as well, making you search and then search again. Then there’s the radio. You walk aimlessly, with no real direction, looking for it. Maybe I needed headphones, because I walked around for quite some time, in an empty area with nothing to see. Picture a blank room, and you’re trying to walk in a direction that has no end. There is also a mini-game you can play. It is one of the worst I have played that was built inside a game. You run around, grabbing hearts and running from spiders. Though I did complete it, I was not enjoying my time. While there were some interesting concepts for the puzzles, I didn’t really feel satisfaction in completing them.

Main Menu Included — When I play a video game, I don’t expect the menu to eventually be a part of the actual gameplay. I was confused at first. I thought something went wrong. I was at the main menu, wondering how much progress I had just lost. But it turns out, there’s a section of the game that makes you try to hit the start button a bunch in order to proceed. It’s like I got pranked. It didn’t help move the story, nor was it entirely clever. If anything, I was ripped away from the atmosphere I was enjoying and put in a bad mood.

Wrap-up

There’s a lot of beauty to behold in this horror game. I can admit, maybe one of the best-looking ones I’ve seen (horror/walking sim). And while I did enjoy my time playing through it, there were some annoying bits that take you out of the atmosphere. There were a few puzzles that just seemed like time wasters. Being kicked out of the game at the menu was actually ripping me away from what I was enjoying (walking around the atmospheric horror). The story didn’t catch me as depressing, even though it was the main theme. I didn’t care about the character enough. The narrator was great at first, but eventually became an annoying philosopher whom I just wanted to shut up. He wouldn’t stop making everything have some deeper meaning. Then there were the words placed around for a puzzle. Like it would say “sound test” on the floor. It made me think of a pirated movie where the editing hadn’t been completed yet. It started off great and with promise, but then the need for the game to be “unique” threw it off the rails, not being able to be saved by the storyline.

Score: Reader’s Choice

Luto was published by Selecta Play and developed by Broken Bird Games on Xbox One. It was released on July 21 2025, for $19.99. A copy was provided for review