Team17’s Killer Frequency is a delightfully gimmicky game with an outrageous horror-comedy premise. A legendary serial killer named The Whistling Man has reappeared in Gallows Creek, and after the small town’s police station is attacked and the sheriff is killed, your late-night radio host is tasked with fielding 911 calls. On air, you’ll use your smooth-talking know-how to choose the right responses to get people out of life-or-death encounters with The Whistling Man, and between calls you’ll explore the near-empty studio in first-person mode, scrounging for scraps of information to help you make more informed decisions.
Under these circumstances, you’d probably stop hosting the show for a night and certainly wouldn’t put these personal emergencies (and potential deaths) on air. But Killer Frequency is broadcasting on its own exaggerated terms from the get-go: The station’s call sign is The Scream, local restaurants have names like Grilling Spree, and the fictitious songs that your character plays on the air are appropriately on-theme, like Roddy Snatcher’s “Final Breath.” This isn’t meant to be a realistic simulation of DJing or dispatching so much as it is a sort of reverse escape room where you provide the vital hints to help others get out alive.
Much of Killer Frequency plays out like the cooperative game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (one of the trophies you get even acknowledges that kinship). But instead of relaying bomb-defusal instructions to a human player, you’re tasked with interpreting maps of corn mazes, magazine articles about how to hotwire a car, and even friendship tests to an NPC. You’re therefore limited with regard to what you can discuss with each caller, and can only provide multiple-choice responses. This streamlining means that the puzzles aren’t difficult, but they do entertainingly test your powers of memorization, common sense, and perception.
What’s perhaps most impressive about Killer Frequency is the way that it, a la the Scream film franchise, embraces and comments on genre tropes while still delivering a compelling slasher narrative. It also leans into the secondhand nature of video games, in that only characters, not players, are ever in actual danger. That’s the case for the radio host as well. Neither he nor you are trying to escape a burning dumpster or murder house; you’re just trying to help guide others to safety from afar. Moreover, the radio-show setting offers up some cutting-edge satire of human behavior. The most detestable character here, the only one who causes the host to snap, is a particularly persistent caller who’s just seeking free advertising, victims be damned.
The game could have done more to simulate the work of a talk-show host—like the way that Not for Broadcast and Papers Please focused on the nitty gritty of, respectively, TV production and an immigration office. Then again, given that your duties are split between DJing and answering 911 calls, it’s probably best that you’re not going to town with Foley effects or swapping between preloaded cassette advertisements and vinyl singles. Likewise, while Killer Frequency could’ve provided you with more options and failure scenarios to make calls a bit less passive (the game records how many times you shoot a wadded-up paper ball through a garbage-can hoop), the tight narrative justifies the way it focuses your options and draws some conclusions for you.
Most radio shows have a clear and compelling sense of identity—some sort of distinguishing characteristic that they commit to. That certainly applies to Killer Frequency itself, as it’s a stylishly campy ode to ’80s slashers that’s as unpredictable as it is breezily entertaining. Which isn’t to say that it’s a featherweight experience. The game, after all, touches on the almost sycophantic relationship between a killer who wouldn’t be as feared without news coverage and a show which would have far fewer listeners without relaying said coverage. In all, Killer Frequency is an accessible, relatable adventure that won’t leave you wanting to touch that dial.
This game was reviewed with code provided by Press Engine.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
