We review the most promising horror games yet to come, with special emphasis on new generation and independent titles.
When we thought that the horror genre was languishing, with franchises such as Resident Evil or Silent Hill far from their best moment or directly, from what we understand exactly by terror, they appeared to make us experience "bad" again. We are talking about some small studies that were able to show that you don't need great means to transmit fear, but good ideas, and teams like Red Barrels, Frictional Games and more provided us with some great nightmare games, even if they had to take a turn. nut to gender.
After bringing us hope again, it's time to talk about the future. Bloober Team is another not very big but young study that surprised with Layers of Fear and last Thursday presented The Medium, showing that there is still a lot of terror to see, also in the next generation. What is the terror that awaits us in the coming months?
Fear in video games, in good hands
Surely we should start by talking precisely about Bloober Team, which four years ago launched the surprising Layers of Fear, a very contemplative and undemanding video game but with a terrifying setting and a heavy narrative section. As we said, both sections depend more on having good ideas than on big budgets, and thus, the Poles captured so many loyalists that they were able to launch a sequel last year with basically the same formula.
A year later, in 2017, The Observer would be enshrined as his best work to date, with futuristic inspiration and notable playable improvements. But not only that, but Microsoft opted for them and their Blair Witch as an exclusive Xbox One temporary, although unfortunately this was a step back, despite its promising setting inspired by the myth of the witch.
But with enough experience, they face what is their most ambitious project, which is nothing more than the aforementioned The Medium, presented during the past Inside Xbox. This game will take us by the hand of its protagonist -a medium, of course- through the real and spiritual worlds, and where one of its great attractions comes from the sound, since at the command of the scores will be none other than Akira Yamaoka, Music manager and member of Konami's legendary Silent Team.
Another study with not many years but a lot of work as baggage are the Canadians of Red Barrels, who seven years ago invited us to spend some horrible hours in what is already one of the most famous psychiatric centers in the history of video games, Mount Massive. Outlast would have its pertinent sequel -even an expansion, Whisteblower- in 2018, and they are currently working on the peculiar The Outlast Trials, a game that can be enjoyed cooperatively and that is a spin off of the saga, instead of a new installment. It is not confirmed if they work on a hypothetical Outlast 3, but it is to be expected that they will continue on the path of terror, which have been shown to be fantastically good.
For its part, we also have an upcoming project from the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, one of the most veteran titles among all the ones we talked about in this article. However, Frictional Games outdid themselves in SOMA, a wonderful science fiction story with a sublime narrative and setting that, oddly enough, was most lacking in encounters with creatures. They will remember the license that made them jump to fame with Amnesia: Rebirth, which is known to be set in Algeria and which will require our ability to manage the available speeches in order to survive.
Returning to Inside Xbox last Thursday, The Medium was not the game that can boast of having presented the most unpleasant trailer, but Scorn, created by the Ebb Software studio and successfully funded on Kickstarter. Although it was originally conceived as a shooter, from its appearance in the trailer, a psychological and spatial horror video game with evident reminiscences to Alien is more intuited. Now the studio bets more on exploration, research and puzzles to the detriment of the action, but what is evident is that with only a cinematic trailer of a few minutes it was able to capture the attention of horror fans.
But the great ones also bet on terror. We were recently able to discover in depth Little Hope, a new episode of The Dark Pictures Anthology by Supermassive Games, who uncovered five years ago with Until Dawn. This exclusive, although it was not their letter of introduction since they had an extensive work behind collaborating on small exclusives for PlayStation consoles, was with the one with which they demonstrated that they could put themselves at the forefront of something really ambitious. Precisely this compilation that began with Man of Medan is his most personal work, and Little Hope the next stop.
But we must not only talk about psychological terror, and also about the most visceral, specifically, about the living dead. However, we must mention two projects of which we have not known anything for a long time, such as Dying Light 2 and Dead Island 2. Really having news of the second is already news, since it is one of the most tortuous developments of the recent years, with many study changes and problems, although now in the hands of THQ Nordic it seems to have recovered stability … or so we hope. Meanwhile, Dying Light 2 will follow in the wake of the original in its virtues, being a game with such a large community that Techland even launched its own battle royale to try its luck. This second installment will be more focused on narrative and decision-making, which has been helped by one of the greats of the western role, such as screenwriter Chris Avellone.
Only with these we already have a more than considerable amount of horror games to satisfy the good fan, to which must be added other small projects such as Succubus, a hypothetical console port of The Beast Inside, Someday You'll Return, which This month comes … Definitely, the terror is, again, in a great moment.
