My Friendly Neighborhood is a mascot horror survival game featuring a wide cast from a fictional, beloved children’s show — not too dissimilar to Sesame street or even Five Nights at Freddie’s — with you playing as Gordon O’Brian, the burliest repair man in all the town.
At the beginning of My Friendly Neighborhood‘s descent into madness and midday showtune tomfoolery you are sent to disconnect the malfunctioning antenna sat above tube MFN studio which is still broadcasting the cancelled show which has slowly started to become darker and darker over time.
Starting in your repair truck, all you’re set up with is whatever you can find stashed in your glove compartment or anywhere in your van, that and your wits, as you venture into the lobby and are immediately met by its concierge of sorts, Ricky. After meeting him you begin your journey deep into the studio to put the channel off the air.
The remaining citizens of the My Friendly Neighborhood cast, however, may have something to say about that, and say about it… and say about it… as they just do not stop talking in nearly every encounter. At first it is quite creepy, you have no weapons, no means to do anything apart from slip by and hope that you’re not noticed as the characters read off twisted versions of their lines in the children’s shows.
Swapping arms, feeding squirrels to dogs, learning your ABC’s. All sorts will be relentlessly relayed back to you as you creep about looking for equipment, weapons and key items to help you explore the studio and other areas.
With an ironically nice and friendly approach to survival horror the doors are all quite clearly marked with what type of key is required to progress — whether it be a shape, or a combination of sorts/ I rarely found myself stumped with most of the main doors but I did get a bit lost from time to time finding the location for some of My Friendly Neighborhood‘s more unique key items.
At one point, with Birdie, you are given a letter to help you progress from a specific area, due to the large amount of written content strewn throughout the world I was under the impression I’d be able to read it to progress but I needed to think more literally, with a letter, and then post it. This left me walking in circles for a little bit.
Other than occasionally getting lost with key items I did find myself getting quite immersed in its world due to how fleshed out it is, as well as how interconnected it all is. I regularly found myself backtracking to areas I had previously visited to find new items and new areas that I missed originally, only to find them featuring changes both subtle and obvious.
The combat against the enemies was interesting as well, you could tie up some of the cast members using duct tape to make sure they don’t get back up when you leave the area, which is especially handy as your weapons only seem to knock them out or stun them. Your main weapon is the trusty wrench and — in true Bioshock fashion — you can go around bonking enemies left and right. However, their hitboxes are a bit rough and, depending on what friend you hit, they seem to quite often detect you before your coup de grace.
If you are looking for something that’s Bioshock-esque check out our review on Atomfall as well, and how we think it’s the Bioshock of 2025.
Damage across the cast of My Friendly Neighborhood seemed to be wildly inconsistent, with the same enemies taking seemingly random amounts of damage from the same weapons with some going down in as few as two hits from the wrench while others take upwards of eight. The ranged weapons were a lot more effective but ammunition is limited.
There is also a lot of optional content throughout, with a number of puzzles to help some of the more nefarious characters and show the lighter side to some of their stories. Without spoiling too much you can give one character depression by showing them footage of a war.
Speaking of extra content, there’s also the addition of cheat VHSs dotted around the map which add lots of little cheaty bits to your second playthrough. There’s also a survival point based mode that’s entirely separate but after finishing the game I didn’t really want to spend much more time fighting hordes of characters over and over but it’s still a nice addition for anyone wanting to pit themselves against the costume menaces.
Overall, My Friendly Neighborhood is a great game for people wanting to try out survival horror, their first survival game or just something a bit more light hearted with a lot of decent puzzles. With an enjoyable atmosphere which is both tense and funny at the same time it’s a breath of fresh air for the genre.
You can find My Friendly Neighborhood on Xbox, Playstation and on Steam.
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