Is Doki Doki Literature Club a horror game?

Have you ever been in this situation? You’re stuck at home on a Friday night with nothing to do, so you decide to check Steam to see if anything catches your eye. Then, as if by divine providence, you come across a bright and colorful visual novel called Doki Doki Literature Club.

It looks like your typical anime-based visual novel game. But you might recall someone telling you that you should go into this one blind, because this seemingly innocuous dating sim is hiding its true nature just beneath the surface. Well, it has an Overwhelmingly Positive reception on Steam — and it’s free, so you decide there’s nothing wrong with giving Doki Doki Literature Club a shot.

But then you see it has the “psychological horror” tag on Steam. So you start to wonder — what’s up with Doki Doki Literature Club? Is it a horror game disguised as an innocent dating sim? Or is it just a big joke that it’s tagged as “psychological horror”?

Is Doki Doki Literature Club a horror game?

Yes. I recall my first experience with Doki Doki Literature Club, shortly after it first launched. I was mostly checking it out because I had heard — as stated above — that it was one game where you didn’t want to judge a metaphorical book by its metaphorical cover. So, I decided to stream it in practically one session.

And, for probably about an hour-and-a-half to two hours, it was a perfectly normal, sugar-coated VN. It follows an unnamed, unseen character who is practically forced to join their school’s literature club by a childhood friend, Sayori. From there, they meet three other girls — Natsuki, Yuri, and Monika. In what I will call the prologue to Doki Doki Literature Club, you will bond with your club-mates, write seemingly nonsensical poems, and eat cupcakes. But then… things take a very, very, very dark turn.

I won’t dive into that here. It’s definitely worth seeing it for yourself, but if you are sensitive to themes of depression, suicidal ideation, or self-harm, you should be aware that Doki Doki Literature Club has these in spades. I am not saying you shouldn’t play it, because it is a story worth reading, but know your limits.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a horror game, despite its colorful anime aesthetic and cheerful theme song. It’ll also lodge its way into your brain so that you’re thinking about it for days after the credits roll.