I love a good scary game, the type that puts you on the edge of your seat and is capable of drawing a scream out of you with a good jump scare, and that experience is only made better when you can do it with friends in tow. Dollhouse of Dead is a horror co-op game that absolutely fits the bill. 

Just in time for spooky season, Dollhouse of Dead by Renderise has dropped a demo that can be played with up to three friends, and it’s a terrifying experience, especially if you have an understandable wariness of dolls. 

At least the rabbits are nice… ish.

Dollhouse of Dead starts out in a nice enough apartment in which you can meet up with friends and explore a bit, finding your feet in this strange world filled with living toys that want to kill you. You’re not alone; some horrifying-looking rabbits are wandering around the place with various instruments in their hands, and they do like to jump scare you almost by accident. 

They’re not all bad, though. For the most part, these rabbits tend to leave you alone and ignore your presence, but they do begin to attack if you take things that they think are theirs. During our playthrough, we found that they were particularly upset if you took corpses to recycle them, because apparently, they have a monopoly on dead bodies. 

Sadly, the rest of the enemies you’ll face in the demo are less accepting of your general presence. Everything else will attack on sight, including dolls, bizarrely oversized Jack-in-the-boxes sans their boxes, and other miscellaneous though no less horrifying playthings with a taste for blood. 

Screaming with laughter (and terror)

I’m not a particularly easy person to jump scare, and I can usually see them coming from a mile away, but co-op horror games like Dollhouse of Dead are an exception to this. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m so immersed in the task at hand that I forget to predict what’s around the corner, or because I’m too busy listening to my co-player screaming for their life to really consider that mine might be in danger. 

Dollhouse of Dead had me screaming, yelling, and cursing as much as it had me laughing. Not because it’s funny, but because it made me do inexplicable and funny things. I carried a corpse with me and got sad that I couldn’t keep it. I jumped off a ledge and found myself surrounded by bunnies, and for some reason, I threw myself into the recycler. 

All of those things are made more funny by having other people to witness your death, which could have been avoided if you had just thought ahead a little bit. It’s even funnier to be on the other side, watching and listening as your friends panic in front of a walking, bloody-faced doll. 

Hiding in plain sight

As with many horror games, there are places to hide in Dollhouse of Dead. There are strategically (and questionably) placed porta-potties dotted around the place, and you can step into them at any point. You can even drag your friends out of them to hide yourself if they’re already taken. 

However, perhaps the most nonsensical and bizarre hiding place happens to be a human-sized backpack that you can pull out and get into in front of the enemies. They do leave you alone when you do this, but I can’t help but think that’s because you’re too weird even for them at that point, and not because they inexplicably can’t see the giant back that is now suddenly in the place of the person they previously wanted to maim. 

At any rate, it’s not exactly a subtle choice of hiding spot, but if it works, it works. 

Dollhouse of Dead is set for a full release at some point in Q4 (Winter) 2025, so there’s not long to wait until we can dive in for the full experience. In the meantime, you can download and play the multiplayer demo through Steam right now.