Horror game The Mortuary Assistant is turning into a job sim, thanks to an “endless embalming mode” update

We’ve had a glut of articles about gloomier video games on here today, Rachel’s bright and breezy Dungeons Of Hinterberg review notwithstanding. Tomorrow, I promise, it’ll be wall-to-wall wholesome life sims, pastel petals and hug emojis as far as the eye can see. But before then, a quick piece on well-received DreadXP-published horror sim The Mortuary Assistant, which will shortly be updated with an “endless embalming-only mode” that strips out the game’s supernatural scares and turns it into a very downbeat job sim.

I say “downbeat”, but I myself have never worked in a mortuary, and should resist making presumptions about the nature of the work. If you work in a mortuary, you may prefer to see tending to human remains as a cathartic labour, or a spiritual experience, or simply a dispassionate activity you do to pay the bills. Perhaps The Mortuary Assistant might qualify as “wholesome”, given a positive acceptance of one’s finitude and the frailty of the flesh. One obvious reference point here is A Mortician’s Tale, which, as Emma Kidwell wrote in 2017, is “a rare breed [of game] which explains to us how our bodies will be treated after our demise and asks us not to be afraid of the process.” You might also like to read Dan Hett’s piece about exploring loss as a video game writer and designer.

The Mortuary Assistant’s endless embalming mode arrives as a free update on 2nd August, alongside the game’s Definite Edition. In the base game, embalming corpses forms part of a story about identifying and repelling demonic invaders while investigating various long-buried secrets. Developers DarkStone Digital use various procedural systems to cunningly rearrange the pieces and ensure a different cadence of scares and revelations every time.

It’s not wholly clear how the new mode changes the game, but seemingly, it does away with all the demon stuff, and leaves you alone to practice your trade. It’s not the only thing the update adds: there will also be new “haunt events”, fresh lore, and new bodies to embalm. Also, a Valentine’s Day seasonal event. That seems pretty wholesome? If you’ve not encountered the game before, there’s still a demo on Steam. If you have played already, you might like to know that DarkStone Digital are now making a Paranormal Activity adaptation.