Content warnings
Maximilien is a horror story, and it is rated 16+. This page exists so that you can decide before you start, rather than find out halfway through. She mentions things that could upset you. She doesn’t tell the story.
Throughout the game
Dissociation and loss of reality
This is the central theme, not a passing element. The narrator loses his grip on what is real, and the writing follows him. The text itself distorts, repeats and comes apart as his condition worsens. If depersonalisation or derealisation are things you have experienced, know that the game does not treat them at a distance.
Mental illness
Deteriorating mental health is a mechanic as well as a subject. The story is set in 1926 and reflects the psychiatric attitudes of its period, including how the mentally ill were regarded and treated.
Criminal violence and death
A series of murders is part of the investigation. Bodies are described, including mutilated ones. Violence is written, not shown in images, but it is written in detail.
Violence against children
The deaths are not shown as they happen, but they are described afterwards in detail, and the narrator revisits them. This is not a background element, it is where the story begins.
Body horror
Organic, visceral imagery, particularly in dream sequences. Descriptions involving flesh, birth and deformation.
Occultism and religion
Possession, exorcism and ritual, drawing on Jewish folklore. Jewish characters, practices and places appear throughout, treated as part of the setting. Religious and mystical texts are handled as fiction.
Alcohol
Boston under Prohibition. We can suffer the consequences.
Specific scenes
The section below names particular moments. It is more precise, and therefore more revealing. Open it only if you need it.
Show specific content notes
The children — please read this one
Three boys who appear in the opening chapter are murdered. Their bodies are found the next morning, and the violence done to them is described.
Later, the narrator relives the killing in the first person, and takes pleasure in it. The passage is written from inside that state of mind.
A ritual sequence also invokes the sacrifice of a child, chanted rather than shown.
Suicide imagery — please read this one
One sequence, occurring within a dream, has the narrator hold a firearm to his own temple. The player is required to press a button to continue. The act is framed as symbolic and as an attempt to wake up, but the moment is explicit and the player performs it.
If suicide is something that has touched you, this is the passage to know about before starting.
Drowning and suffocation
Several passages describe breathlessness, drowning and the sensation of suffocating.
Fire
Fire and burning appear in more than one sequence.
Illness and decay
Descriptions of fever, rot and physical decay.
Characters can die
Some characters live or die depending on your choices. It is possible to reach the end having lost people you could have saved, and the game does not always tell you when that happened.
What is not in the game
No sexual content and no sexual violence. No cruelty to animals. No flashing or strobing visual effects.
Last updated: August 2026.