Moroi Preview: Eerie, Unusual, and Enigmatic in All the Best Ways

The first time the game Moroi really clicked for me was when my character willingly fed himself to a talking meat-grinder. This bizarre moment – when he acted on an irresistible urge to “just do it” – got under my skin in a way I didn’t quite expect. Many games might have thrown up a game-over screen as a joke, but not Moroi. Here, you dive headfirst into the grinder. However, you’re not exactly gourmet material; the contraption spits you out, unimpressed. Later, you hand it a severed hand (don’t even ask), and this time, it’s satisfied enough to grind it up into dust, which you then use to help an elderly woman make “soup” – though that event doesn’t go as planned either. A fiery explosion later, your character deadpans, “You are on fire,” as the machine malfunctions. That wasn’t supposed to happen, right? But in typical Moroi fashion, you collect your bone dust and move on, leaving the sentient grinder with its peculiar taste in the dust. It was then that I said aloud, “Oh, it’s that kind of game,” and I was hooked.

The name “Moroi” springs from Romanian folklore, referring to a kind of vampire or ghost, sometimes thought to drain energy from the living. The game borrows this mysterious essence effectively. You step into the shoes of a rugged, bearded protagonist who wakes up in a strange, painful prison with no memory of how he got there. Oddly enough, everyone else seems to recognize him. But maybe, as a mysterious tall figure in an odd hat suggests, forgetting might be for the best.

Initially, your mission is simple: escape. This involves solving quirky puzzles like “find item, use item,” which often take unexpected turns. Take, for example, the cannibal engaged in a macabre performance art of consuming himself, hoping for lightning if it isn’t his masterpiece. Sure enough, a bolt comes down, leaving you with a severed hand to feed the unusual meat grinder, which promptly bursts into flames. Then you proceed to the eccentric hat-wearer, who directs you to bring the bone dust to an old woman concocting “soup.” When she accepts your “salt,” the brew swallows her whole, leaving your character musing, “I’m starting to think that wasn’t soup.” Noticing a trend here?

Moroi keeps unfolding with its unpredictable strangeness. At one point, you rescue a duck sporting human teeth from becoming someone’s dinner, and he gratefully offers you his teeth for weapon reinforcement – and guides you with gory gums. The game elegantly balances these bizarre quests with straightforward combat, utilizing a top-notch Doom-like glory kill mechanic, where you can execute enemies in a satisfying slow-motion spectacle, replenishing health in the process. And oh, the delight of wielding a harpoon-shooting minigun!

Switching between solving eccentric puzzles and intense combat, Moroi shines. It’s thrilling, moving from counting corpses in a freezer to crack a code, to facing foes hungry for your blood like it’s a shopping frenzy during a sale. Yet, beyond those scenarios, the game dives deeper into strangeness and intrigue. You even become a winged doll, directed by its creator (another doll) to protect his tree brothers by sacrificing parts of itself. It’s an odd and mesmerizing segment, leaving me curious as the credits rolled.

However, Moroi isn’t without fault. My demo encountered a few hiccups – occasional bugs and uneven writing – but these are fixable issues. What strikes me is the blend of the macabre and the enigmatic, creating a world where the unexpected happens around every corner. Despite not knowing what a moroi fully means in the game’s context, I am utterly intrigued. I mean, who could resist a game featuring a meat grinder with a preference for human flesh and a dentally challenged duck?