Polish development studio Bloober Team has established a reputation for intriguing, innovative horror titles that emphasize narrative and atmosphere over action and combat. From the gorgeous, grotesque Layers of Fear in 2016 to the poignant The Medium in 2021, Bloober Team titles have a unique, almost auteur flair that helps them stand apart from their contemporaries. Though the developer typically dabbles in proprietary properties, it recently released a game based on the Blair Witch Project movie series, but, according to Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno, various other horror franchises were considered.
In a recent interview with IGN, Babieno confirms that Lionsgate approached Bloober Team and asked it to develop a title based on any of its horror properties. Lionsgate owns a few notable horror franchises, many of which have never received any sort of video game adaptation. For instance, Hellraiser’s Dead By Daylight tie-in was that series’ most notable gaming outing, and Children of the Corn, despite its many sequels, never saw a single video game adaptation.
Ultimately, Bloober Team opted to go with The Blair Witch Project because it believed that the IP presented an opportunity to “build something new.” However, before the decision was set in stone, Babieno insinuates that Saw was briefly considered. With pervasive themes of guilt and atonement and a relatively narrow scope, Layers of Fear feels as if it could fairly easily have been converted into a title based on the Saw property. But with the prospect of working with a viral horror hit so infamously scary that Stephen King couldn’t finish it in a single viewing, Bloober Team settled upon the more ambitious but less-recognized Blair Witch franchise.
When it first debuted, 2019’s Blair Witch was met with mixed reviews owing to performance issues, but public opinion improved as time went on, and the title’s Steam page now boasts a mostly positive aggregate rating from gamers. Of course, this was hardly the first Blair Witch Project installment to be met with initial disapproval. The sequel to the original movie, 2000’s Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 was met with almost universal disapproval, and even the 2016 Blair Witch pseudo-remake established a notoriously negative reputation.
Bloober Team seems to have its hands full as of late. Babieno suggests that the studio has received multiple offers from movie studios to adapt other properties, but it’s had to turn them down in favor of hitherto undisclosed projects. Many speculate that Bloober Team is currently working with Konami on some kind of Silent Hill reboot, with some under the impression that it may be a full-on remaster of the PlayStation 2 classic Silent Hill 2.
Source: IGN