Conversation to Die for – Killer Frequency Review

Developer: Team17 | Platform: PS5 | Playtime: 4:55 | Platinum: 11:30

I live in a town in the North of England, Wikipedia has it as roughly 45K people. Not huge by any means, but a far cry from your stereotypical small American towns – Your Arcadia Bay’s, your Watery’s, your Beaver Hills. The setting for Killer Frequency is much the same, but unlike most small American towns (Hopefully), Gallows’ Creek has a serial killer knocking about. Worse still, your Radio show is cancelled in favour of being police dispatcher, and people are just dying to call in.

This is the rather unique and entertaining premise of Killer Frequency. You play as Forrest Nash, once a big name Chicago radio host, demoted to the midnight show for backwater town Gallows Creek – where everyone knows everyone and there’s only two police officers. When the dispatcher has to leave town to get help, the task falls upon you to save the townsfolk from the wrath of local myth serial killer, The Whistling Man. Even with the clever spin of the Radio DJ being saviour or damnation of potential victims, a ‘killer in a small town ‘story had every chance to tread on clichés. Not that Killer Frequency doesn’t fall on Clichés, but it manages to back them up with a genuinely interesting mystery that unravels as the night unfolds. It’s the kind of game you play again, and you kick yourself for not hearing or seeing the clues that were so obvious. I’ll admit, I’m not a particularly animated person, but I felt myself getting excited when I started to piece things together. The game lets you do it too, but on a first playthrough they don’t tip their hand right until the very end. There’s always another twist to be revealed. The story is carried along by the sarcastic, jaded but ultimately a good guy host of The Scream, Forrest Nash and the ever upbeat nature of his producer, Peggy. The two have a great rapport elevated by the often genuinely funny dialogue they have. The script here deserves a lot of credit, the pair genuinely sound like real people having real conversations. The rest of the cast (ie the victims) are all also varied and well-acted.

Gameplay takes place entirely within the confines of the radio broadcast building and the alleyway surrounding. Not a big play area by any margin, but the game manages to do a lot with it. Same goes with the calls, you never see any of the victims or their surroundings, but excellent dialogue and voice acting really help paint the picture of each scenario. So, between playing records and your legally obligated adverts, you will be answering the calls of the victims, helping them to survive. You have to listen to each one carefully and pick the appropriate dialogue. After that, you can explore around the station for clues or answers to help save your callers. Someone having car trouble and can’t escape? Luckily your station has a car talk show during the week and the hosts left a magazine out. Need to get someone to safety quickly? Well it’s a good thing you have a map of the town with all the construction works. You could argue some of the solutions are a little too convenient to have on hand, but the setting of a Radio Station means you could fairly easily justify things. I forgot to mention this is set in the 80’s, so no checking the internet for answers, this is the old fashioned way.

Something that I appreciate about the game is the true feeling of choice – if someone dies, they’re dead. The game doesn’t make you restart from a checkpoint, you’ve just got to carry on. I also appreciate the game not accusing you of being an evil monster if you let someone die, it understands that it’s a tricky situation and bad things do happen (Although the game could probably do more to tell you off when you clearly don’t make an effort and give entirely wrong answers, but that’s neither here nor there). It might seem a little difficult, but there are definitely clues in the game to save everyone. Some of the results are surprisingly heartfelt, like a bunch of dumb jocks being convinced to go protect an old woman down the street from their frat house. Its things like this that give the game a special touch.

This is a case where looks can be deceiving – a seemingly generic looking Indie slasher horror is actually an incredibly well produced black comedy puzzle adventure with a strong narrative carrying it through. A playthrough will only take about 4 hours, but it’ll be a night to remember. It’ll be a scream.