Mouthwashing review – 2024’s most difficult game, but not in the way you might expect

PC; Creative Reflex/Wrong Organ
The word challenge' has an accepted meaning in the world of video games, but in this engrossing sci-fi horror it's the subject matter that's confronting

It is perhaps poetic that throughout this year, the 30th anniversary of the PlayStation, developers have found such a rich vein of horror in early 3D visuals. Crow Country, Fear the Spotlight and now Mouthwashing all make terrifying use of low-poly characters, smeared textures and muted colour palettes to generate dread and abjection - and in this sci-fi odyssey from Wrong Organ they're also brilliantly utilised to symbolise complete psychological breakdown.

The setup to Mouthwashing is simple and familiar: when a hulking spacecraft crashes in a remote part of the galaxy, the small crew slowly goes insane waiting for a rescue that is never going to come. Not helping matters is their cargo: millions of gallons of high-alcohol mouthwash - which very quickly gets abused by the desperate and deeply flawed castaways.