Martha is Dead is a Psychological Thriller game, developed by LKA and released in 2022 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
Set against the backdrop of Italy during World War II, the game opens with the death of Martha, the daughter of a German soldier. Her twin sister Giulia tries to find the answers behind her death but the hunt for the truth is shrouded by mysterious folklore and the extreme horror of war that draws ever closer.
Tropes present in this game:
- Abusive Parents: Giulia's mother is horrifically abusive who always saw Martha as the golden child. The psychological abuse against Giulia goes as far as the mother telling her "I Wished You Were Dead".
- Ambiguous Situation: How much actually happened is left up to the player to decide at the end. Depending on the dialogue choices either everything happened as depicted or almost nothing did.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: Giulia talks about how a woman in the mental institution spent all her time masturbating until her hands were bloodied and had to be restrained, which when released she just did it all over again. It was her.
- Angsty Surviving Twin: Giulia is very distraught after the death of her twin sister.
- Animal Motifs: Sparrows for Giulia. Nanny called her "little sparrow", she tests out her camera by photographing a sparrow, and there's a visual metaphor of a raven beating up and then killing a small sparrow. Sparrows were once omens of death and they were the ones who carried the souls of the dead, fitting for a game that is based around death.
- Body Horror: Jesus, plenty enough that the content of the game warrants a warning before starting it. Some honorable mentions include skinning off Martha's face in a dream, cutting a deformed fetus out of Martha's dead body, and carrying around Giula's mother's severed head and putting it with the rest of her dismembered limbs.
- Bowdlerise: The PlayStation versions of the game are altered in a variety of ways compared to other platforms:
- Certain scenes that were originally interactive (like the infamous face peeling scene and a later scene where the player cuts open Martha's womb) no longer are, with options added to skip the scenes entirely should players not wish to see them.
- Mentions of masturbation in dialogue during the Church chapter are removed entirely.
- Disclaimer text is updated to be more sensitive and detailed, with the inclusion of warnings of references to miscarriage.
- An optional censorship toggle that is only present in the PlayStation versions censors the game even further by skipping the face peeling and womb cutting scenes entirely as well as removing all reference to suicide and miscarriage.
- Chess with Death: After Lapo's death and getting shot Guilia dreams of meeting Death with Martha. Death can't tell them apart but tells them that Guilia must die. The girls drew lots by tossing a medallion and the loser goes with Death, trusting the decision to Fate. Death knows that while Fate plays by her own rules, Fate is Death's ally and would always choose the proper girl. However, the medallion only had Martha's name on it and thus cheated both Fate and Death.Death: One thing is for sure. I will correct my ignorance and give Fate back its blindfold.
- Creepy Good: Giulia can come off like this, especially with her monotone-like narration and the fact that she cuts off her sister's face and cuts open her uterus as well, but it's debatable if ultimately she is considered "good."
- Creepy Doll: Marionettes are used to reenact Giulia's abusive childhood. Giulia later appears as one when talking to herself.
- Dead Man Writing: Giulia finds a letter in Martha's possession that notes that she must be dead by the time Giulia reads it.
- Dead Person Conversation: Giulia uses a Summoning Ritual to summon the spirit of the White Lady.
- Doesn't Know Their Own Child: Lampshaded by Lapo who writes in his letter that he was surprised the mother (and by extension, the father) could not tell Martha and Guilila apart after 15 years (which is very unlikely in real life) while he easily could after knowing them for a much shorter time.
- Everyone Knows Morse: Giulia communicates with the partisans using Morse code.
- Facial Horror: Martha's skinned face in the dream sequence is shown in graphic detail.
- Foreshadowing: When Irene learns that Giulia swapped places with Martha, she threatens to throw Giulia into an asylum. That's exactly what happens.
- Framing Device: The story is told in a narration of Giulia speaking to the audience. The ending reveals that she's stuck in a mental facility.
- Gorn: The game has numerous horrific scenes, most famously a dream sequence in which Giulia cuts off her sister's face and wears it as a mask.
- Haunted Heroine: Giula, in spades. She spends the entire game trying to discover what happened to her sister, but to her dismay it might be plausible that she killed her herself.
- Heroic BSoD: Implied in the ending that Giula had a mental breakdown while in the mental facility.
- Identical Twin Mistake: Invoked by Martha who wore her sister's clothes so their mother would mistake the two.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Despairing over everything going on, Giulia begins playing the piano to get away from it all...except that she's supposed to be acting as the deaf Martha.
- Inner Monologue: Giula talks to herself throughout the course of the game, but it's vague if she's speaking to another person, or just talking to herself.
- Jacob and Esau: Erich was close to Giulia whereas Irene doted on Martha.
- Just a Flesh Wound: Guilia not only survives a shot that tears through her body (passing any critical organs) but is already back to full health the next day.
- Just a Stupid Accent: Generally averted in the English version by having the characters speak British English but played straight for the father who speaks with a thick German accent to let us know he is German.
- Loading Screen: The loading screen between chapters pulses in a loading animation, depicting the legend of the White Lady.
- Locked Door: Giula's childhood room is locked behind this.
- Magical Camera: Giula's camera can reveal the location of a dead man's grave by taking a Spooky Photograph.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Whether or not Giulia actually met the White Lady or was hallucinating over the guilt of losing her sister.
- Mouth Stitched Shut: Martha has this in a few dream sequences. It also appears in her puppet scene, where her puppet's face shatters to reveal the mouth and ears sewn shut.
- My Sibling Will Live Through Me: Giulia pretends to be Martha after discovering her corpse.
- Nightmare Sequence: Giulia has several scary dream sequences after her sister's death.
- Night Swim Equals Death: Invoked by Martha when she makes her mother kill her at the lake.
- No Antagonist: We first get the impression that Irene is the main antagonist, but learn that she has her own mental and medical issues. She also became infertile and weak after the two girls' births.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Giulia's nanny lets the family use her villa while she herself dies at a bombing in the village.
- Obfuscating Disability: Martha reveals to Giulia that she faked her deafness from when she was little to get her mother's attention. Giulia does the same when impersonating her dead sister.
- Repressed Memories: Giulia has these for her childhood. She remembers them by acting them out with her puppets.
- The Scapegoat: Giuli was this to Irene, blaming her for everything that happened in her life. Erich even lampshades this.Erich: It's the same old story, it's Giulia's fault, isn't it? Her fault for Martha being deaf and for you being infertile.
- Sidequest: Giulia has the option to help a nearby partisan cell against the fascist rule.
- Split Personality: It's heavily implied that Martha is really an alter for Giulia, meant to protect her from Irene's abuse.
- Suicide by Cop: Suicide by mother. Martha feels guilty for what she has done and wants to end her life but manipulates Irene to do it for her.
- Survivor's Guilt: At the end of the game, Giulia is completely broken that she still lives while everyone else she loved has died.
- Tear Off Your Face: Giulia does this to Martha in her dream.
- Trauma Conga Line: Giulia has to live through the deaths of her sister, lover, parents and nanny before she is thrust into a mental facility, drugged up and completely broken, with no hope of living a happy life.
- Traumatic C-Section: Giulia cuts open her sister's corpse to confirm her pregnancy.
- Troubled Abuser: Irene is abusive to Giulia but it's also implied that she's depressed over the fact that she ended up infertile after giving birth.
- Trust Password: The partisans request Giulia to start her message to them with a specific phrase.
- Twin Switch: We learn that the two girls liked to switch beds when they were young to fool their parents. Martha also uses this trick to make her mother think she was Giulia at the lake.
- Unreliable Narrator: Giulia is this.
- The Unfavorite: Irene preferred Martha over Giulia.
- Womb Horror: With only scissors and her own determination, Giula cuts open her dead sister's corpse to confirm that Martha was pregnant. She digs out the dead fetus, which to her surprise, is deformed and has two heads.
