‘Mouthwashing’ No Spoiler Review: Hell Is An Abandoned Space Freighter

Mouthwashing is a first-person horror game following the five crew members of the Tulpar stranded in the empty reaches of space, shrouded in perpetual sunset. God is not watching.

Developed by: Wrong Organ

Played on: Steam

Length: 3 hours


Mouthwashing begins like any good psychological horror game, to the background of unsettling synth music and a Windows XP wallpaper of a sunset. Then the camera pans down to reveal a bandaged, bloodied man laid out on a sick bay bed. I’m afraid the game doesn’t get more pleasant from here.

Few video games begin with the same chutzpah as Mouthwashing’s now-legendary opening line: I hope this hurts. It isn’t just a warning to new players, it’s also a bold promise that Wrong Organ delivers over the next three hours. Needless to say, the game is best experienced blind, but if that’s not enough to convince you, I hope the next few paragraphs will do it justice. No spoilers, I promise.

In a horror game landscape saturated by thinly veiled transmedia licensing deals, Wrong Organ’s second title feels like a return to what the genre should be. No possessed animatronics, no human souls being stuffed into giant soft toys, no commodification of nostalgia for the sake of merchandising. Just good old fashioned human-made terror that will leave you with an uneasy feeling in your gut and a waning appetite.

Despite its short runtime, Mouthwashing boasts a distinct purposefulness that I can only credit to its clear creative vision and a firm understanding of its confines. The game doesn’t attempt to break the rulebook in terms of gameplay mechanics, considering it is mainly a walking simulator, but it plays to the strengths of its genre. Every choice from its pacing to dialogue to framing pulls you deeper into its narrative, which makes it all the more impressive when it hits every single mark on the way out.

There is a certain literary finesse to the storytelling in Mouthwashing that is rare for its medium. Wrong Organ has an incredible understanding of how to invoke terror, and it is largely due to their willingness to commit to the story they want to tell. Unlike games that fall prey to creating shocking moments for the sake of shocking its players, Mouthwashing sets up each strike to have the largest impact, even if it means landing the blow that players will see coming.

But perhaps the biggest success of Mouthwashing isn’t the game itself, but the way its story and characters have resonated with its player base. It is one thing to write a story that hurts, but it is truly a feat to write a narrative that twists the knife in your gut and leaves you saying “thank you” at the end of it.

As for me, Mouthwashing has renewed my desire to take more chances with smaller, riskier stories. Narratives that are willing to veer away from the marketable and the palatable, because that might just be where we’ll find the stories that need to be told. That’s where the storytellers are sharpening their knives.

Because they’ll want it to hurt.


Verdict: We Hope This Hurts

In the opening moments of Mouthwashing, a single sentence lingers on the screen: I hope this hurts. It isn’t just a warning to new players, it’s also a bold promise that Wrong Organ delivers with incredible finesse over the next three hours. This short horror game is best experienced blind, and will leave you with a waning appetite and a changed perspective. It also kills 99.9% of all germs.

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