In the opening minutes of Mouthwashing, the pilot of a spaceship crashes head-on into an asteroid, stranding the crew in the far reaches of space and brutally maiming the captain within an inch of his life. What follows is an existential horror show with unique visual effects, brutal dialogue, and surreal consequences that kept my eyes locked to the screen for the entire three-hour playtime. I am not typically a horror fan, but chose to brave the expanse of outer space in search of a good story, and Mouthwashing absolutely delivers.
You experience Mouthwashing’s events through the eyes of Curly, the captain before the crash, and Jimmy, who takes over afterwards. For maximum suspense, the two timelines are interwoven in an easy-to-follow nonlinear structure. Its first-person adventure gameplay has you traverse the window-less, claustrophobic spaceship known as the Tulpar, where you’ll mainly talk to your crew and solve basic puzzles, usually by bringing items from one area to another or memorizing number sequences to unlock doors or safes. It’s a perfectly serviceable gameplay loop, but it’s nothing special – just a way to get from one story event to another.
Between the main chapters, Mouthwashing is not afraid to get surreal and dreamlike, dipping into frightening nightmare scenarios based on the protagonist’s guilt and fears. From a liminal labyrinth of the ship’s hallways to grotesque, abstract body horror, developer Wrong Organ refuses to let the player get comfortable; I was always as uneasy as the rest of my coworkers. While some later sequences lasted too long for my liking (especially when I was eager to get back to the climactic events of the main story), these sections are a huge part of Mouthwashing’s identity, filling me with fearful delight whenever a new section started.
The crew is another massive highlight of the game, each uniquely tragic in ways the plot holds back on until the moment is right. Before anyone was trapped in outer space, they were trapped in the cold vacuum of capitalism by an uncaring company – they aren’t risking their lives for something they believe in, but a paycheck. And while death is not certain, the looming fear of a meaningless demise is infectious, raising tensions until the crew prevails or loses all hope. These moments of intense pressure bring out the best and worst of each person on the Tulpar, and the team at Wrong Organ crafts some top-notch dialogue to express that. A late-game monologue from Swansea is the peak of that writing achievement, and has stuck with me since beating the game.
While many video game stories are clear and to the point, Mouthwashing relies on subtext and implication to great success, with one particular character’s backstory only clicking into place as you realize the truths they were afraid to admit. The dual protagonist structure conceals information in a similar way, and I greatly enjoyed the feeling of the game’s ending when everyone’s motivations became clear. Each character’s fate and actions are foreshadowed just enough to feel inevitable without also feeling predictable. Players who take a second playthrough will likely pick up on details they missed the first time.
Visuals are another of Mouthwashing’s strengths. It’s far from the only low-poly horror game to launch in 2024, but the aesthetic direction is popular for a good reason. It’s the intersection of nostalgia and dread, summoning a familiar vibe for an otherwise unsettling narrative. It also makes creative use of “data moshing,” a trippy visual effect that imprints the pixels of an image onto the movement of a video, to subtly transition the player between areas. Much like the creative, surrealist horror sections, these transitions keep the player from getting comfortable, and the art style makes them particularly effective.
At multiple points in the game, text flashes on the screen saying, “I hope this hurts,” an ambiguous message from one character to another. We never learn who says it to who, but it’s a particularly dark line: an explicit desire for suffering in a story where everyone is suffering in their own ways already. Quotes like these along with Mouthwashing’s final moments left me rattled and introspective, reckoning with the lengths people can be pushed to when pressured by crisis, ego, or capitalism. As intended, it left me feeling disturbed. In other words, it hurts, Wrong Organ. Your wish came true.
This 2025 review reflects our thoughts on the game’s current state at publishing. As such, post-launch updates were factored into the final score.
