As the newest DJ in town, you work a graveyard shift at a small town station. You soon receive a phone call that you assume is a prank. The local 911 operator has happened upon a bloody scene at the local police station, and no one is left to help the town’s citizens. Meanwhile, a killer thought long dead is stalking the townsfolk, and you are their only hope.
This urban legend-esque plot is the story of Killer Frequency, a game from Team17 Digital. Set in 1987, you are Forrest Nash, a once high-flying DJ with millions of listeners. But, thanks to “The Incident,” you have been relegated to the graveyard shift of Gallows Creek radio station, which is lucky if it gets 25 listeners. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Killer Frequency Leans Heavily Into The Slasher/Comedy Genre
The game is tonally very close to the shlocky 80s slashers/horror comedies that proliferated in the genre. The films everyone touts as “so-bad-it’s-good” are emulated in Killer Frequency, with plenty of extra cheese thrown in for good measure. The game actually began life as a part of a game jam and was initially made in just two weeks back in 2019. Since then, the game has had a visual overhaul and a concept tweak to make it what it is now.
To begin with, you have to learn the ropes, which is where producer Peggy comes in. Peggy is a vague silhouette in front of you in the other studio. She will direct you on what to do. You have to learn how to start a record, change a record and operate the sound desk. All of these things are pretty minimal and easy enough to navigate.
If you aren’t arthritic and playing on the Switch, that is. I’ll get the gripes out of the way early on because this genuinely seems like a platform issue rather than an overall game issue. It is so fiddly. One of the fiddliest fiddly games I have played.
I had not considered the controls when I grabbed it for the Switch, which I really have to remember to consider. Joy-Cons are not great for nuance, so I found it frustrating attempting to select an interactable object. Selecting things using the arrow buttons would make this a much easier experience.
The game is also so dark. You start with a tutorial in an alleyway, and I have to max out my brightness to see anything. Anyway, back to the action.
Once I got over wrestling with the controls, I got into the meat of the story. Leslie, the 911 operator, has found the Sheriff dead and the Deputy unconscious and badly injured. It’s your job to help her escape the scene as the killer returns to finish the job. This will set you up for the rest of the game. During calls, you will have specific prompts and choices to make that will affect the outcome of a situation. Choose poorly, and the caller is dead as a doornail.
The Story In Killer Frequency Is Executed Perfectly
If you make the right choices, Leslie will escape with the injured Deputy and head out of town to find help. Meanwhile, for some insane reason that makes no logical sense whatsoever, Leslie has rerouted all 911 calls to you in the studio. So begins a night of terror as the Whistling Man stalks Gallows Creek looking for revenge.
It’s a perfectly executed pastiche of slashers and early 2000s teen horror like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend. As the night goes on, you learn more about the Whistling Man and his history in the town. Callers will need help escaping the Whistling Man. Helping them will sometimes entail foraging around the station for information and objects that can help. Other times you will have to direct the panicked locals using the map on the studio wall. This is made more difficult by accounting for road closures and construction pinned to the side of the map.
It’s an entertaining experience, with multiple endings and some fun characters to interact with. You talk to a wide variety of terrified townspeople, cocky jerks, pranksters, and potential suspects during the night, and you can directly influence many of their fates. It also has excellent 80s-style music that you can basically control on the desk. The game’s biggest downfall is that it seems optimized mostly toward playing in VR. The first-person aspect alone isn’t to blame. It’s more the way the controls work. It always feels like I should be playing it in VR.
Killer Frequency is out now on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam, and Meta Quest 2.
