Sorry We’re Closed Review — This Is How To Be A Heartbreaker

à la mode Games’ debut title has finally dropped, and this girlypop survival horror was well worth the wait. Sorry We’re Closed‘s use of bold colours and visually polarizing environments makes it a feast for the eyes, and the storytelling is just as captivating with its subversion of certain tropes I won’t spoil in this review.

You enter Michelle’s story right before everything hits the fan. Still reeling from her heartbreak, Michelle sits in a dingy convenience store listening to butthead Darrell waffle on about his woes. After meeting some of the cast of characters whose stories you’ll be helping to shape later, you retreat to bed only to be greeted by an intimidating shape entering your doorway.

This is the Duchess, an androgynous demon hell-bent on finding someone to love them. Being cursed by the archdemon, Michelle is thrown into a world full of angels and demons that she was unwittingly ignorant of up until now. Throughout the story, you’ll have many choices to make, placing others’ stories on different paths while trying to save your own skin.

Sorry We’re Closed is a story about warped, toxic ideas of love. It showcases the different ways people wield their own fractured concept of love, and ultimately hurt themselves and the people around them. It’s also unabashedly queer if you couldn’t immediately tell from the key art. As you follow the story, many key choices will be laid out in front of you over the course of just a few nights. You become an agent of fate, moulding people’s relationships to how you see fits best and each decision will have consequences, some can be undone while others are set in stone. The interpersonal relationships you come across throughout the story are a major highlight. From star-crossed lovers to unhealthy power imbalances, the relationships feel so personal, with you steering them to and fro.

The writing of Sorry We’re Closed is surprisingly grounded, considering the setting. With the game’s multiple endings, I was drawn to go back and finish them all, and to my surprise, they aren’t soft copies of each other. The conclusions felt earned and steered away from many predictable tropes I’ve found in many other story-rich games.

Sorry We’re Closed takes you through a range of visually polarizing areas. The opulent halls of both The Duchess and The Dream Eater, to a dilapidated mausoleum filled with hidden spikes and dangerous statues. Smack dab in between are the streets of a London borough, filled with apartments, a diner, and a churchyard at the end of the street. All of this is in an always-beloved, nostalgic, low-poly PS1 style. The exploration through these areas makes you uneasy with oppressive, locked camera angles, depriving you of clear vision. Combat is somewhat disorienting, having you switch between third and first person to attack demons — something that consistently caught me off guard throughout my initial playthrough.

As a side effect of being cursed by The Duchess, Michelle now has a third eye she can use to see otherworldly beings around her — allowing her to see people for who they really are, people she thought she knew. This is built into the combat thoughtfully, allowing Michelle and the player to see a demon’s heart and stun them briefly when activating the third eye. If you’re quick enough, hitting these hearts deals massive damage and charges your heartbreak meter — but it’s always risky, especially when you either have a more formidable foe or multiple weaker ones to deal with at once. Once your meter is charged, Michelle can pull out “The Heartbreaker” and deal a fatal blow to a demon’s heart.

Boss fights are a garish spectacle but can be a little slow and janky. Bosses have multiple hearts to break, splitting fights into predictable stages. However, sometimes a heart won’t be quite visible from where you’re standing and given the small window of opportunity to attack, it can get frustrating when another chance doesn’t present itself for another minute or so.

Still, hitting those Heartbreaker shots is always satisfying. All of this, coupled with the awe-inspiring set pieces and filthy needle drops that will blow you away, Sorry We’re Closed delivers some of the most memorable boss fights I’ve experienced in recent years.

In fact, the rest of the game is just as impressive in its direction in art and sound, with soft, ethereal tracks playing through most of Sorry We’re Closed other areas capturing this alienating feeling that Michelle must be feeling in this new world of hers. Both the dark depths and angelic halls are somehow as beautifully grotesque and full of horrific monsters as one another, while the plane that lies between holds its own beauty in the people that inhabit the space.