MISTERY is a game I have a hard time hating. It’s true that the game is jam-packed with flaws, from audio issues and weird design choices to buggy features and translation problems. Yet, I still found myself really interested in the moments that showed the developers’ clear passion. MISTERY has the potential to be great, but it should have launched in Early Access; it needs more TLC from the devs before I could recommend it to anyone.
MISTERY is a social deduction game where players collect materials, craft gear, and complete tasks together in abandoned laboratories. They are hindered not only by monsters but also by “alternates,” who are players disguised as monsters with the goal of killing the other human players.
MISTERY offers several game modes, but since no players were active on my server, I was forced to play the only mode that allows for single-player gameplay. In this mode, the goal is to find and defeat three boss-style monsters before time runs out—a task you can only complete by scavenging the map for gear and upgrades.

Right off the bat, you’ll notice that MISTERY wasn’t designed for English-speaking audiences. While the game does have an English translation and European and North American servers, the translation is quite poor. I found it difficult to understand all the information the game presented. While I found the tutorial narrator’s clear lack of English charming, it sometimes got in the way of understanding certain features, as it was difficult to catch what she was saying. This issue persists in many of the game’s text segments, which can end abruptly or use poorly translated words that make the information unclear.
Of course, if that were the only issue, I wouldn’t mind as much. However, there are other aspects of the gameplay that feel unfinished, leaving you wondering if what you just experienced was intentional or the result of a bug.
Combat in MISTERY, for example, is a fairly basic system, but one that’s crucial to the core of the game. You essentially just point and click, with basic animations showing the attacks of whatever melee or ranged weapon you have equipped. However, there is a noticeable delay between issuing an attack command and the actual attack—about a second or a second and a half between clicking the mouse and swinging a bat. I tested this on multiple machines and concluded that it’s something in the game itself, not an issue caused by internet or video lag. This delay also occurs when picking up materials off the ground.
The game uses a sight system, but the way it’s implemented is frustrating. Without a flashlight, giant, hulking monsters will simply disappear from your screen when they are outside of a small radius around you. During boss fights, this can be especially problematic, as the fight music will cut out completely. This often leads to the monster attacking you from outside your line of sight or charging into you, with a delay between when the monster physically hits you and when it reappears.

Sound in MISTERY is another issue entirely. There doesn’t seem to be any background music outside of boss fights, and every sound in the game is a free asset you’ve likely heard before. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but there are so many recognizable sounds that it quickly becomes distracting.
Crafting is such a basic process that it might as well have been left out. You simply collect two types of material and forge items at a workbench. Given how delayed interactions can be, I would’ve preferred random weapon drops and no crafting at all.

On top of all these issues, MISTERY also features microtransactions, with many cosmetic items locked behind a paywall. If the game were free-to-play, I’d be more forgiving, but not only do you have to purchase the game, it doesn’t feel fully finished as it is. So, charging players for additional content doesn’t seem appropriate just yet.
Despite all of these issues, I wanted to like the game. It has some neat ideas that could make for an interesting title if it were more fleshed out.
The concept of the game is really cool. You’re essentially anomaly hunters, entering areas where the laws of physics no longer apply and fighting strange, mysterious creatures. Some of these creatures are really cool, though many look like default flesh blobs.
I was also a big fan of the game’s characters. While there isn’t a lot of lore or storytelling (and what little there is is hampered by the translation issues), I found that the cast of playable characters had a lot of visual personality, giving you a sense of who they were through interesting designs alone. I was especially a fan of the ghost and mindreader characters.

The game’s insanity system is cool as well, causing your allies to appear as monsters or other strange visual effects when your sanity is low.
Overall, MISTERY isn’t a terrible idea for a game, and you can tell that some care from the developers went into it, at least during the conceptualization phase. However, as it stands, the game is buggy, unpolished, and filled with microtransactions. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t currently have much of an audience in the US, which is necessary to fully engage with the multiplayer aspects of the game.
The Final Word
With some minor adjustments and more time in development, MISTERY could have been a great game. However, as it exists now, the title feels unfinished, somewhat buggy, and hard to access for an English-speaking audience, which may explain why the game doesn’t have many players on its North American servers.
Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! MISTERY is available on Steam.
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