The Last Door: Season 2 – Collector's Edition (PC) Review

Rather than go for straight up jump scares, The Last Door goes for more of a psychological, unsettling vibe. It sets the tone of every act, and acts as a perfect backdrop for the Lovecraftian-esque horror story it tells. There are still those startling moments, but they're more of a side note; brief escalations in an otherwise unsettling, but still believable world.

The second season picks up after the end of the first, in which Jeremiah Devitt, the protagonist of the first season, has disappeared. His former psychiatrist and close friend, Doctor Wakefield, begins investigating his disappearance, and in doing so, continues the investigation into what lies beyond the Veil, and what Alexander Du Pré knew.

The gameplay retains the same point-and-click adventure style gameplay as the first season, and it's still an odd vehicle to deliver storytelling, but it's functional. There's quite a bit of backtracking to be done, but for the most part, it works with the atmosphere. The low-res style, the haunting score, and the set pieces, all contribute to a vaguely disturbing setting that fits the story perfectly.

The puzzles that make point-and-click adventures so famous are at their best here. There aren't a lot of false leads, and most items have a very distinct use, so there's not a great need to fuss with items in the inventory. Most rooms have fairly obvious highlights, so for the most part, it's relatively straightforward. It's honestly refreshing to see an old-school adventure game make such great use of the mechanics of the genre.

The biggest draw of The Last Door is definitely the narrative. While it's hard to go into great detail of the second season's plot without spoiling anything, it's an excellent conclusion to the series The Game Kitchen has put so much work into. It's chilling, haunting, and downright disturbing at times, and it's absolutely worth playing until the end.

Everything just really clicks together; there's a great sense of timing in the animations, so the atmosphere is perfectly punctuated by the big reveals and changes in each room. The music and sound design is absolutely spot on, and the low-res style honestly fits the tone so well. It's still got some of the same frustrations the genre has always struggled with, but The Last Door: Season 2 still manages to excel at that timeless, Lovecraftian vibe.