If you’ve ever worked an overnight job, you’re probably familiar with the inexplicable creepiness of going about your work day while the world around you sleeps. Even if the job is totally innocuous (for me, it was unloading trucks and cleaning office buildings), there’s something unsettling about being nearly alone in a building that’s normally bustling with people, enough to make you expect danger lurking around every corner. Killer Frequency captures that feeling by making you a late-night radio DJ in a small town — but in this case, the danger in the shadows is very real.
Released in 2023 to excellent reviews, Killer Frequency is a first-person puzzle game about a radio DJ turned emergency responder guiding listeners to safety after a serial killer emerges one fateful night. While that’s a pretty high-stakes job, Killer Frequency infuses its horror with plenty of comedy, perfectly capturing the tone of a campy ‘80s slasher flick. And during PlayStation’s Summer Sale running through August 15, it’s half-off at just $12.50.
Killer Frequency casts you as Forrest Nash, a former big-city radio DJ who’s been demoted to the night shift at a small-town station ominously known as “The Scream.” As your shift begins, your first call is from the local police station, warning you that the police chief has been murdered and the rest of the town’s cops are on vacation. As the only one who can both field calls from the public and speak to everyone in town at once, you spend the rest of your night as their de facto guardian angel, guiding callers to safety using only your wits and what you find around the radio station.
A typical call might go like this: A woman calls in and says she’s trapped in a car that won’t start with the killer lurking outside. To help her, you need to head to the office of your colleague who hosts a show on car maintenance, root around his desk to find a magazine article explaining how to hotwire a car, then relay that information to your caller. Others are more complex, like a newspaper editor who needs you to call different phones in his office to lure away the killer who’s just broken in.
Just about every puzzle requires finding some sort of document then using it to guide someone to safety. My one criticism of Killer Frequency is that it doesn’t often let you use all your fancy DJ equipment — like a turntable and a sound board — to solve puzzles, which feels like a bit of a letdown for such a novel premise.
You’ll still get to satisfy any itch you might have to run the radio show, though, as in between callers, you still have a show to run. Sure, there’s a killer on the loose, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some music to soothe your nerves, courtesy of a set of records with some surprisingly catchy tunes that wouldn’t feel out of place to hear on an actual ‘80s throwback station. Operating all the gizmos on your desk feels satisfying even if they’re mostly used during intermissions between the actual puzzles.
You’re accompanied by your producer, Peggy, who both fields calls and walks you through the mechanics of transitioning from callers to music and running all the gear on your desk. Forrest and Peggy’s relationship is one of the highlights of Killer Frequency. You hear a lot of their banter over the course of the game, and both actors give charming, believable performances whether they’re joking with each other between tracks or fighting for their lives against a killer on the loose.
Horror games aren’t usually my jam, but Killer Frequency makes it feel like there are still some out there that can surprise me. It’s full of genuinely funny dialogue to keep the tone light, but when it leans into horror, it goes hard. Listening to a caller screaming for their life on a phone is terrifying and tense, as are the moments when you need to leave your desk to explore your surroundings without getting nabbed by the killer yourself. Striking a tonal balance between humor and terror is no easy feat, but Killer Frequency walks that tightrope perfectly. Even if it could have found more clever ways to use its various radio gadgets in gameplay, its satisfying logic puzzles and midnight movie vibes still make this undersung gem well worth your time.
