Image Power and PlayWay's upcoming Haunted House Renovator horror game seems like it'll be a perfect Halloween romp. The haunted house is one of the oldest kinds of horror stories the genre has to offer, meaning that it's full of age-old spooky imagery and scares. The idea of something meant to keep people safe turning against them is chilling, but the idea of playing as the person who cleans up afterward may be even scarier.
In this game, players will take on the role of a ghost-hunting renovator who enters haunted houses specifically to deal with them. This means cleaning the place up, getting rid of any unsightly bloodstains, and making the houses nice and tidy again. However, it may also require covering up literal skeletons in the closet.
The game's reveal trailer showcases what kind of graphics, tone, and cleaning supplies fans can expect from Haunted House Renovator. It appears that the houses themselves will feature almost photorealistic graphics, which adds to the overall atmosphere of fear. However, when the supernatural forces that reside in the haunted houses begin acting up, things take a turn for the hilarious. The rest of the game seems to have a distinct dark comedy flair, especially in the ways players are able to deal with ghosts and ghouls.
According to the trailer, players will be tasked with purchasing haunted houses straight out of horror B-movies and cleaning up all evidence that something happened there so new owners feel safe to move in. The video shows a gamer shooing rats away from the building, hunting down old bloodstains concealed by a tablecloth, and putting suspicious bottles on a trash heap. Next come more obviously supernatural tasks: replacing the missing head of a distressed suit of armor so that it stops moving, scrubbing apparent Satanic symbols off the wall, and vacuuming up a malevolent specter.
Also featured in the trailer is the ability to capture a small creature resembling a gremlin, tear down a haunted painting and remove the equally haunted wallpaper behind it, and cover a skeleton in a hidden nook with a grandfather clock. All of this has to be done while keeping an eye on the overall project budget, the building value, and the paranormal activity detector. If this video is anything to go by, Haunted House Renovator is going to be a great dark comedy title to play on Halloween.
Haunted House Renovator is scheduled for release in 2023 on PC and consoles.