Square Enix's baffling murder mystery social game Killer Inn gets a quick, free-for-all playtest ahead of its release next week

In a few months time we’ll be approaching the anniversary of Square Enix realising that actually, their commitment to releasing certain games only on particular platforms isn’t that good for them after all. These following two years will supposedly have been a time of internal change for the studio, with that translated externally via the Final Fantasy 7 Remake games releasing on more than just PlayStation. Perhaps they’re finally making smart choices! And then last year, instead of finally showing off something like, I don’t know, Kingdom Hearts 4, which was first revealed four years ago now, they announced Killer Inn. Okay! And now, you can try it out for yourself.

Heading over to the game’s Steam page allows you to join a playtest taking part this weekend ahead of its early access release next week. No pre-requirements, just click a button, and you’re in. But perhaps some context for the uninitiated. You and 23 others find themselves in the titular Killer Inn, where 16 of you are designated as lambs, the rest as wolves. It really is quite like Werewolf, with wolves attempting to sneakily kill the lambs, while the lambs try to figure out who the wolves are.

Clues can be left behind at the scene of a crime to be discovered, traps can be set up to trick lambs, and also it looks like just about everyone can have guns to just fully blast each other with. There is a strong Unreal Engine premade vibe to the whole thing, quite honestly, but the overall concept isn’t awful, it’s just an incredibly strange game for Square Enix to not only publish, but partially make (alongside Tactic Studios). Who knows! This is a streamer bait game if there ever was one, and social games like these are having a big moment right now, so perhaps there’s an audience for it somewhere.

If you don’t manage to try out the beta test, you’ll be able to pick it up when Killer Inn releases February 12th, next week.