I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream from Nightdive Studios and The Dreamers Guild brings the classic point and click adventure game to PlayStation 5. Learn more in our I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream review!
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream from Nightdive Studios and The Dreamers Guild brings the classic point and click adventure game to PlayStation 5. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream was originally released on PC way back in 1995, developed by Dreamers Guild and Cyberdreams. The game is based on the short story of the same name from Harlan Ellison, who also worked on this release back in the day. It takes place in a futuristic dystopian world in which an evil AI known as the Allied Mastercomputer – which calls itself AM – has eradicated all of humanity… except for five people.
This is not good news for the survivors since AM is working hard on torturing them every single day. AM has been keeping them alive only for that purpose, and it’s now been 109 years since the torture began. How is AM doing this? By messing with their minds. It’s been creating metaphorical adventures based on each of the survivor’s fatal flaws, keeping them guessing about their choices every step of the way. It’s most certainly a dark story that is not going to be for everyone!
The five main characters are four men and one woman. There’s Gorrister, who has turned into a suicidal loner, longing for death more than any of the other prisoners. Ellen used to be a brilliant engineer who was making a name for herself when AM seized her. For some reason, he becomes hysterical when confronted with the color yellow. Weird, right? Benny is AM’s favorite. He’s got radiation sores and scars, blindness, and an arthritic condition! Ted is a bit of a cynical paranoid who is always on high alert, twitching with nervousness. Nimdol is the last one of the bunch. He’s an old man who very much looks his age, and AM thinks of him as a kindred spirit of sorts.
Since I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream was released almost 30 years ago, it’s very much a game of its era. This point and click adventure is of the type that uses a series of commands at the bottom of the screen to perform a series of actions. These commands are Walk To, Look At, Take, Use, Talk To, Swallow, Give, and Push. You’ll be using the left analog stick or the D-Pad to move a cursor around the screen at different speeds. You must use this and the aforementioned commands to form sentences that will direct the current character you’re playing as to perform this or that action.
For this 2025 release, we’re getting some quality-of-life improvements, so you’ll be able to use the cursor to, say, hover over an exit and press the X button to use the “Walk To” command to exit an area. Press the Square button to grab an item since that button adds “Take” as part of the sentence right before that item’s name. Press the Triangle button so that the “Look At” command is added as part of a sentence. The “Use” action for a sentence will be mapped to the Circle button. Pressing the L2 button will add the “Talk To” command to a sentence. You can press the R2 button to use the “Swallow” command in a sentence. The L1 button will add the “Give” command to a sentence. Pressing the R1 button will add the “Push” command to a sentence.
The game features a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to work on adding to your collection. And since it’s a Cross-Buy title, you’ll be able to download both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of the game to your PS5 console, and each one will have its own trophy list. Each list will be split into a single Silver trophy and 11 Gold trophies. For this shiny Platinum, you’ll have to play as survivors Gorrister, Ellen, Benny, and Ted, as well as complete a handful of specific objectives that I won’t be spoiling here. The choices you make during conversations and how you approach puzzles will have an effect on how the story unravels, so be sure to pay attention to what you’re doing! You could lock yourself out of talking about a particular subject, anger a potential ally, seal an agreement with a rather shady individual, or force yourself to take a story path you might not have planned.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream was originally released on PC way back in 1995, developed by Dreamers Guild and Cyberdreams. The game is based on the short story of the same name from Harlan Ellison, who also worked on this release back in the day. It takes place in a futuristic dystopian world in which an evil AI known as the Allied Mastercomputer – which calls itself AM – has eradicated all of humanity… except for five people. This is not good news for the survivors since AM is working hard on torturing them every single day. AM has been keeping them alive only for that purpose, and it’s now been 109 years since the torture began. How is AM doing this? By messing with their minds. It’s been creating metaphorical adventures based on each of the survivor’s fatal flaws, keeping them guessing about their choices every step of the way. It’s most certainly a dark story that is not going to be for everyone!
The game features full voice acting, which helps to bring each character to life. You can go into the Extras from the main menu to check out the digital manual for the game, as well as the soundtrack section to listen to all of the songs in this release. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is available as a Cross-Buy title, so your $9.99 purchase will allow you tom download both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of the game at no extra cost.
Disclaimer
This I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Nightdive Studios.
