Highlights
- 2024 is a great year for horror games with Alone in the Dark, The Outlast Trials, and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 already released.
- Blumhouse Games aims to support Indie studios, announcing six new horror games, including Crisol: Theater of Idols and Grave Seasons.
- Fear the Spotlight, already a success on Steam, will relaunch with additional content and improvements supported by Blumhouse Games.
2024 has already been a pretty solid year for horror video games, with the likes of Alone in the Dark, The Outlast Trials, and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 all having been released already. But things are only just getting started. In the next few months, horror fans are going to be able to get their hands on long-awaited games like Still Wakes the Deep, Silent Hill 2 Remake, and Slitterhead. And as if that wasn't enough, Blumhouse Games has just announced its own slate of upcoming horror games.
Last February, it was announced that horror movie production company Blumhouse would be diving into the world of video games. Blumhouse Games' goal was to lift up Indie studios, grant them a bigger budget and greater support, and deliver a range of experimental horror video game experiences, and based on the company's recent Summer Game Fest presentation, it's nailing the assignment. Blumhouse Games announced a total of six new horror games at SGF, each one coming from an exciting smaller studio.
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Crisol: Theater of Idols - Vermila
The first of six games to be showcased within just two minutes, Crisol: Theater of Idols is the debut title from Spanish studio Vermila. Set in the 20th century, Crisol: Theater of Idols will combine action, horror, and adventure to deliver a spooky FPS that revolves around Spanish folklore. According to Vermila's official website, blood will play a key role in Crisol, both in terms of narrative and gameplay, with the player needing to use it to defeat the creatures haunting them and the island of Tormentosa.
Grave Seasons - Perfect Garbage
A farming simulator with a murder mystery twist, Grave Seasons is coming from developer Perfect Garbage, the studio behind last year's Love Shore. Grave Seasons will see players tend to their crops, plant some seeds, talk with some townsfolk, and strike up a romance or two all while also attempting to figure out the culprit behind some grizzly supernatural murders. Cozy horror is still a relatively new genre for video games, and Grave Seasons looks to be its next big entry.
Sleep Awake - Eyes Out
A brand-new studio from Los Angeles, Eyes Out's figureheads are Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis, and Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, who aim to fuse deep narrative themes with music and interactivity to produce something truly special. The studio's debut project is Sleep Awake, a "first-person psychedelic horror game set in the far future," according to Eyes Out's Twitter page.
Fear the Spotlight - Cozy Game Pals
A bit of an outlier in this particular line-up, Fear the Spotlight is actually a game that's already been released. Dropped on Steam in September of last year, Fear the Spotlight gained rave reviews from fans and currently sits at a "Very Positive" ranking on the platform. According to the recent News post on the game's Steam page, Blumhouse noticed Fear the Spotlight's early success last year and offered a helping hand to make the game even better. Developer Cozy Game Pals has since removed the game from Steam but plans to put it back up in the Fall of this year along with at least an extra hour of story content, something that owners will have free access to.
The Simulation - PlayMeStudio
Based in Santiago, Chile, PlayMeStudio's sophomore game is The Simulation, a mind-bending psychological horror that looks like it'll play with meta themes and gameplay styles. PlayMeStudio's last title, The Signifier, has gained quite the cult following over the last few years, so plenty of eyes are sure to already be on The Simulation.
Project C - Half Mermaid
An incredibly exciting collaboration between Sam Barlow, the writer/designer behind Her Story and Immortality, and Brandon Cronenberg, the Canadian filmmaker and son of the legendary David Cronenberg, Project C is a game intentionally shrouded in mystery, something evidenced by the game's Steam page which features an array of redacted sentences. Based on Barlow's previous works, Project C is bound to be another thought-provoking, surreal horror experience, and one certainly worth watching.