MADiSON Critic Reviews

Bloodious Games has been developing MADiSON since 2016, and it’s incredible to see a project of this magnitude come to fruition from a team of only two people. MADiSON creates a harrowing experience for fans to feast on, with its outstanding atmospheric tension, eccentric camera mechanic, and psychedelic puzzles. Apart from being a horror game, it also showcases some truly artistic stages and mythos. There are some beautiful landscapes to explore and investigate as you plunge into a spiral of insanity. After all, you are the Mad Son.

Ultimately, if you love horror games, in particular P.T., simply know that you need to play MADiSON. This is the best pure horror game in years, shredding the nerves of even the most brave of souls. It can be a little frustrating when you get stuck on a devious puzzle, but when you finally find the solution it’s very rewarding. No game has horrified us quite as much as this debut from Bloodious. We just hope the studio is ready to follow up with something else even scarier.

MADiSON is consistent, and that’s one of the key factors in a great horror game. A lot of games tend to struggle with a sluggish second act after an incredible opener or fall off in the final act, but that does not happen here. The puzzles remain a delight to solve, the tension never eases up, and just when you think you’re safe, a light will flicker, and you’ll catch a glimpse of the monster and you’ll need to change your pants. Beyond this, the story and lore is disturbing on a true crime level and manages to maintain its pacing. Suffice it to say, MADiSON is an unnerving, unsettling, and truly terrifying experience.

Summary: MADiSON is an astounding success in the horror genre, especially for someone who doesn’t play many horror games (me). The game was well put together and delivered on the spooks, however some puzzles are rough to figure out and could have been a little less obscure.

By far, the most spine-chilling game that we have tried in a long time. As an adventure, it offers really interesting puzzles, even when control has its flaws.

MADiSON is an excellent psychological horror title bolstered by clever puzzles and a constant atmosphere of dread. It's well-paced giving players just enough of a breath to then take on the next challenge. Some quality of life updates, such as increasing the number of options in the settings and removing the safe could benefit the game. Ultimately however, those are only small issues in an otherwise fantastic game.

MADiSON borrows a lot from lamented P.T., obviously Visage was also a source of inspiration, but you can’t say the game lacks its own identity. It’s actually one of the best horror games of recent years. It tells a gripping story, does a great job at building tension, randomizes jump scares, offers interesting puzzles, looks good and sounds fantastic. On the downside, it tormented me with incessant backtracking and annoyed with strictly limited inventory space.

MADiSON, developed by the Argentine studio Bloodius Games, breaks the mold and gets us into one of the best horror experiences so far this year.

MADiSON channels the best instalments of the first-person horror genre to deliver a frantic, nerve-shredding and atmospheric tale of demonic possession. It delivers the scares often and will have you tentatively looking over your shoulder at that shadow that definitely wasn’t there before. It’s been a while since I felt this much trepidation moving through a cursed home, but it feels frighteningly good to test this demonic presence again. A must play for horror fans this year.

MADiSON is a good horror title, especially thanks to its never banal puzzles, which recall those of classic graphic adventures, rather than Amnesia titles.

MADiSON is a brilliant psychological horror about possession, paranormal events and a terrible ritual gone wrong. If you loved Visage, MADiSON is the next horror to play.

Numerous jump scares, logical and challenging puzzles, and psychological horror that shake your mind. It is worth considering that MADiSON has the best core elements among recent horror games. However, the links between the narrative and puzzles may not be easily found due to lack of hints.

Madison is a creepy crawl through a twisted haunted house with enough genuine out-of-your-seat scares to leave you shaken like a Polaroid picture.

Very classic in content as in form, MADiSON will not really succeed in standing out from its models but still has robust qualities: a horrifying atmosphere that keeps you on the lookout and surprisingly clever puzzles that will make you take out your pencil and a piece of paper.

All in all, MADiSON is a good game but a mediocre horror. I have some serious issues with it, but I can’t dismiss the potential. I believe the next game will be able to compete with Visage, and I’m already waiting for it impatiently.

Madison works up a solid premise and uses its camera mechanics effectively as a means of communing with the supernatural. Its multipart puzzles are also often a highlight. As a horror experience, however, it falls back on a handful of simple tricks, detracting from subtle psychological concerns for the sake of easy thrills.

Madison loses itself to out-of-place flights of fancy during its middle periods, allowing you to time-travel as you solve a series of colour-coded painting puzzles that do little to advance the overall plot of the game, and feel more like placeholders than real, mechanically or thematically-relevant puzzles. It says a lot about the audio and visual design of the game that this lack of self-control doesn’t actually impact the experience too much. That said, if you’re the kind of person who gets easily hung up on inventory puzzles, Madison may test your patience as much as it tests your nerves.

MADiSON is simultaneously one of the most tantalizing, yet enraging horror experiences I’ve ever played. The atmosphere and story are rich and engaging, and the scares are turned up to 11. But the puzzles are so baffling that it’s tough to recommend this game even to devoted horror fans. That said, I’d love to see Bloodious Games take another stab at a horror project with more streamlined gameplay.

MADiSON is a psychological horror game without any psychological horror. It has jump scares galore, and at least on PC, it’s a completely broken mess for me before launch.

Madison is a little too clever for its own good. For all that it can be a bit ridiculous (in an endearing way, at that) it does some genuinely great things, and really takes advantage of everything the in-game camera can offer. But at least an hour of your six-ish in the hell-house will be you swaggering back and forth angrily interacting with things you already found, until you stumble on the solution you need. This massively undercuts the pacing, to the point that the well-crafted scares and monstrous monsters stop being as effective. I'd still recommend it to a horrorficionado, but the rec isn't as full-throated as it could have been. If the puzzle bits were a little easier, the horror bits of Madison would be able to properly shine.