The Haunted Hoard: Killer Frequency (PS5)
It’s easy to think you know better than the characters in a horror story. People will outright shout at their screens when a group splits up or someone hides when they could have run, and it’s easy to judge a character’s response when you’re not the one in active danger. The first-person horror game Killer Frequency essentially grants you the ability to show you know better, your input primarily consisting of being the one to advise people in a life or death scenario. In this slasher story, characters can and will die if you tell them to do the wrong thing so you better be confident in what you say if you want everyone, including you, to survive the night.
Killer Frequency takes place in 1987 in the small town of Gallows Creek where you play as radio DJ Forrest Nash. Once running a radio show to millions, Nash now finds himself working a request show in the dead of night to a town with only around 1,000 citizens. Despite his fall from grace, he does approach the actual work professionally even though its easy to see he looks down on the small town antics at first, but the callers to 189.16 The Scream on this night are not just people looking to hear some funky 80s beats. Thirty years ago, Gallows Creek was terrorized by a serial killer known as The Whistling Man, the night of his mysterious disappearance becoming known to the locals as Whistling Night. On this particular Whistling Night it seems he’s somehow active again, the sheriff murdered, the deputy knocked out, and the usual 911 operator needing to head to the next town over to find some police back-up. With no one else to man the line, the operator gets Forrest Nash to field emergency calls while she makes the hours-long trip, and with no actual emergency services to call on to assist the prospective victims of this slasher, Forrest and his producer Peggy have to help people escape a range of unique and deadly situations.
Killer Frequency does take place primarily behind the radio station desk, it being an almost entirely dialogue driven experience. Luckily, the two core characters of Forrest and Peggy are a wonderful fit for managing both sides of their work tonight. Despite knowing the danger out in town, Peggy and Forrest still keep the music playing between calls and do have regular call-ins where they simply speak with the person on the other line. In fact, at times Killer Frequency isn’t afraid to have calls or situations that are outright jokes, and not only are they well spaced to defuse some tension, they’re also built up well and can have surprising pay-offs during the more serious life-saving situations. Peggy and Forrest can be on pins and needles during the most dire calls, heart-broken should you fail to save someone, but also it does feel a bit triumphant when you can revel in a close save with these characters whose personalities you get to know over the course of the night.
The moments of light-hearted fun don’t rob the Whistling Man of his eeriness either. He is played perfectly straight, a mysterious killer with a unique audio cue that works wonders for this experience that is primarily audio-focused. You don’t get to see the people you’re helping running for their lives or trying to fight back, only hear them through the phone line, and so this mostly silent slasher is instead giving a tell tale whistle that becomes an ominous prelude to the moments of terror. The calls from the other side are also able to remain remarkably realistic then, people only needing to narrate things they think necessary and keeping things conversational rather than always announcing the exact actions of the killer. If he’s there, he’s whistling or attacking in a way that’s usually not at all quiet, and one thing that makes him even more effective is the mystery of where he’ll pop up next. Not every caller, even to the 911 line, is going to relate to him, and what’s more, there are times you need to leave the safety of your booth since most of Killer Frequency’s actual gameplay can feel like a puzzle you solve with your dialogue choices and clues you can find in and around the radio station.
As the night goes on and more callers call in, the types of situations they find themselves in evolve into more complicated and diverse dangers than simply needing to evade a man with a knife. An early example sees someone stuck in their car unable to get it going, and since this is 1987 you can’t easily look up how to hotwire a vehicle online. Situations like this see Forrest leaving his desk and searching around his office for potential clues, be it things found in the offices of other showrunners for the station or exploring the basement storage area where it seems this night’s events might have a closer connection to the station’s crew than it first seems. Nervously listening closely in fear of the Whistling Man as you push through the dark abandoned parts of the station is certainly tense, although as the box’s Teen rating implies, things never get too grisly or violent when it comes to what you actually witness. In fact, only a few times will the game demand you do anything with a sense of urgency. The main way this manifests will be during the conversations with the callers, where much of the time you have a set of dialogue options for how to advise them to proceed. Sometimes these will expire if you wait too long to respond, although sometimes not picking an option during these limited windows can be the right thing. After all, Forrest can be just as nervous or unsure as the people he’s helping, so acting too impulsively can get your caller killed.
There is a very nice spread in how your dialogue options and puzzle solving relates to who you’re calling. Accounting for a person’s personality or identifying how they’ve behaved thus far can inform what the right choice for them specifically can be. Someone may need to be calmed down, but others you might have to get terse and just tell them to run as they’re wracked with indecision. It really is the calls that mix these sort of personal evaluations with some other puzzle solving element that really shine though. You’ll have to use maps of Gallows Creek for reference to properly guide people, remember the right steps to treat a wound, and put together small clues such as when a woman trapped in her house can hear a nearby frat party receiving deliveries through the night and you need to comb through ads to guess which restaurant they might be ordering from so you can utilize them to send a message for help. You need to not only analyze the situation and caller then, but be able to utilize some concrete facts under pressure to do your job properly.
For potentially anxious players, Killer Frequency also quite nicely provides not only an autosave that triggers after key moments but three save files you can set your self at most any time from the pause menu. If you want to clear the night with no failures you can set up some insurance, although there are definitely times where things can seem dire right before they turn around. Those moments of uncertainty are definitely the tensest and keep you on your toes so you never get too confident, but Killer Frequency also doesn’t seem overly punishing and there are usually little hints in play so if you did fail to find some vital information while exploring the station you’ll be able to head back out and search for whatever you might have missed. Multiple save slots also makes it easier to pursue alternate outcomes and endings as someone you saved can prove relevant later in the story and naturally a story where Forrest and Peggy can meet an unfortunate fate themselves inherently means there’s more than one finale to this intriguing twist on a slasher story.
THE VERDICT: The idea of a late night radio host balancing his show with manning the 911 line during a possible killing spree is certainly a bit absurd, but Killer Frequency leans into that when appropriate for some nice laughs while also making you sit on the edge of your seat as you fear you might have given the wrong advice to someone who’s inches away from death. Needing to explore the radio station for information required for solving puzzles makes the phone advice portions more layered than simply gauging the situation and people involved, the tension thick at those crucial moments so it’s nice to relax with groovy 80s tracks and Forrest getting worked up over prank calls after. It may involve a lot of sitting at a desk and just hearing the horror instead of directly participating, but this unique play style also works well with its malleable “anyone can die” layout making those hard choices the kind that make your heart stop.
And so, I give Killer Frequency for PlayStation 5…
A GREAT rating. While it feels like Killer Frequency could use a few more moments where danger is pointed directly Forrest’s way to even further raise the stakes, it also manages to be a remarkably accessible horror game because it doesn’t dive into anything gory with its slasher story and doesn’t apply immediate pressure to act too often. Killer Frequency asks you to think about the best approach and use what clues you can find to navigate increasingly complicated scenarios like figuring out who in a group is best for executing parts of a multi-step escape plan or figuring out what events around the town might influence which part of towns are safe or accessible. It’s not too heady with clues not crossing over between situations and it’s also not just a logic game since you do need to consider how the person on the line is acting, but that’s the winning mix that makes Killer Frequency so engaging. Nothing feels guaranteed but it’s not just psychoanalyzing someone either, a precarious balance able to keep the tension high no matter what the scenario might be. It is certainly impressive Killer Frequency can then roll in the humor so well, especially since sometimes these jokes might need to follow a failure. Killer Frequency isn’t about wallowing in fear or failing to take the threats seriously. It’s clever and comedic even if maybe you will spend quite a bit of time shooting paper balls into the nearby trash can to kill time during slower chats, but it does feel like diving in deeper on the humor or horror could potential upset the effective relationship in place.
It’s not too hard to see this unique concept was built with VR in mind since more sedentary play is better suited for wearing a headset for hours on end, but Killer Frequency also doesn’t just settle into the booth with the well conceived trips around the building that in turn strengthen the moments of puzzle solving. Avoiding too much guesswork and steeped in an appealing aesthetic that can also pull off an eerie atmosphere, Killer Frequency was able to make its 5 hour horror radio show into one you won’t want to miss.