Trivia Murder Party 3 Early Access Impressions - Is the Party Over?

Written by BarelyMagicMike

Among the many Jackbox games that have found a home within my friend group's game nights, the status of Trivia Murder Party is especially high. The first two entries, for those unfamiliar, were released as part of Jackbox Party Pack 3 and 6 respectively, with the sequel also being available in the Jackbox Party Starter collection. So Trivia Murder Party III is not only the third entry in the franchise, but the first one released as a standalone, fully independent of the developer's traditional release format. Releasing into early access on September 17th and featuring online matchmaking for the first time, is Trivia Murder Party III worth dipping into now for fans of the franchise?

The answer to that is a resounding YES… albeit with some minor caveats. But I want to start by putting focus on an aspect of Trivia Murder Party III you won't see within a written review, and that's the massive visual upgrade the game has received. If you have any questions about why this iteration is its own game rather than part of another pack, its fantastically creepy-cute glow-up certainly holds a part of that answer. Jackbox Games has chosen to abandon the creepy hotel vibe from the prior game in favor of a more charmingly tongue-in-cheek summer camp setting, and uses this theme to great effect whether it's for mini-games that have you cooperate to sort yourself into canoes and hopefully not capsize, the scoreboard itself which hangs each player’s puppet over a bonfire, or the final round which now has players chasing a haunted hayride in order to avoid being buzzsawed off the map.

The game itself plays similarly to prior entries, with some minor tweaks. You'll answer obscure trivia questions, in this case perhaps more obscure than ever, and not knowing the answer will knock you into this entry’s version of The Killing Room, where players will play minigames to see who lives and who dies. Dying isn't the end though - you can still answer questions, still participate in some minigames and ultimately still win - it just sets you back in the final round a bit, similar to prior entries.

Minigames have received an injection of variety that was sorely needed too, as I don't recall ever playing the same one within a match, and pretty much all of them were a hit with my friends, even if a couple were a bit confusing until we played them once or twice.

As far as issues go, most of them are relatively minor. To be perfectly honest, I had several major bugs that tempted me to say this one's worth waiting on a sale for, but Jackbox Games’ team has clearly been working overtime here, as all of the major ones I experienced appeared to have been patched out by the time I played the launch version.

A few minor things I'd like to see change though - players would occasionally get kicked out of the game, and yet the game join code is only on the pause screen, requiring us to stop the game to allow players to rejoin. Perhaps understandable to not give them a disadvantage, but it would be nice to just have the code always on screen like in prior games to make that a bit more frictionless.

Additionally, prior Trivia Murder Parties were no stranger to this problem, but sometimes the narrator simply talks way too much and repeats jokes ad nauseam, and being allowed to skip tutorials to get right into the game when we all know how to play would be an invaluable feature. Lastly, it rubs me a bit the wrong way that you need a Jackbox account in order to customize your character once you join a game. Come on Jackbox. Nobody wants to do that. Just let us make our characters look silly without that unnecessary friction.

Overall, though, these are minor nitpicks in what is a great game that has already easily replaced its predecessors as a highlight for game nights in the foreseeable future. Early Access aside, it's absolutely worth making the jump now, with online matchmaking only enhancing that value. Trivia Murder Party III is available now on Steam and Epic Games Store.