At Tokyo Game Show 2025, I got a quick hands-on session with Killer Inn, the upcoming multiplayer “werewolf” game that promises a unique spin on the genre.
Since Among Us became a huge hit some years ago, we’ve seen plenty of werewolf-style games, with many featuring some interesting mechanics. Killer Inn promises to outdo these as it arms the lambs, meaning they not only have an actual shot at defending themselves, but they can even take matters into their own hands.
Unlike my other recent hands-on sessions with Square Enix titles, this Killer Inn session was quite short as it happened only on the publisher’s TGS booth. Still, I found my short experience to be surprisingly enjoyable, as the game is more promising than it initially seems to some.
Not Just Lambs to the Slaughter
For those unfamiliar, Killer Inn is a multiplayer murder-mystery game. Here, 24 players will be wolves, while the rest are lambs. As in other werewolf-style games, players must accomplish tasks to earn money that they can use to purchase helpful items. More than that, players can also unlock weapon chests with the task rewards, meaning lambs can be armed and ready to protect themselves.
In my playthrough, I played the role of a lamb, and my character had a pirate theme. I wasn’t able to explore the differences between each character, but what I did at least get to experience was how it plays to be a lamb.
The tasks in this game are pretty basic fetch quests, so the early part of the game isn’t particularly exciting. This changes as soon as players acquire melee and ranged weapons. As with any werewolf game, the wolves must take down the lambs to win. Given the element of surprise, even if the lambs are equipped with weapons, they can still be taken down.
When a lamb happens upon a corpse, they can investigate it for clues. Doing so a couple of times can reveal the perpetrator. When you find out who the killer is, as a lamb, you can become the hunter yourself. This is an interesting twist as there are no regular meetings here. You simply need to shoot the wolves yourself, making gameplay as a non-wolf more exciting than it would typically feel.
This was exactly the case with my run, as when I got a gun, I became more proactive, looking at the other players’ actions. After some time, I happened upon someone who had just killed another player. I wasn’t sure if this was just a case of mistaken identity or if I saw a wolf killing a victim. Soon, the player started to shoot at me, and thankfully, I got the best of him. It turns out that it was indeed a rather trigger-happy wolf. In this case, I got lucky, as there’s potential for a lamb to mistakenly kill another lamb, making themselves more suspect.
By the end, there were only two wolves remaining and four lambs. I managed to find out which one was a wolf through clues, after which I managed to kill them. Finally, I saw another player seemingly coming to help the wolf I downed. Out of instinct, I shot at them, and it turned out that I was right. With that, I took victory for the lambs’ side.
The fact that everyone can become armed not only adds more action, but it also results in plenty of funny shenanigans. I can see some particularly trigger-happy lambs to shoot first without thinking, which can lead to an early death for them. Meanwhile, a shrewd wolf can more easily blend with other lambs, and even help them, until they decide to show their true form.
My experience with the game was quite chaotic, but I did have fun even if I wasn’t able to grasp all of its elements and mechanics. On the flip side, this game would need cooperative players to be truly fun, as the fact that everyone can get armed may invite griefers. Plus, the gunplay is fine, but it does feel a bit floaty.
Killer Inn Initial Impressions
Because my playtime with Killer Inn was quite short, I still can’t give a proper verdict. On the flip side, I did have fun with this game, enough that I’m hoping that the game’s gunplay will be improved a bit, not to mention that I also hope players who try this out actually engage with the systems properly. If that was the case, Killer Inn may have potential to be the next werewolf-style game to blow up.
Killer Inn is set to launch on PC soon. While there’s no launch date, yet, the game will get a closed beta test from October 3 to 13, 2025.