Sink your teeth into bite-sized horror
Supermassive takes an episodic approach
Supermassive Games turned narrative gaming on its head with Until Dawn back in 2015, and it’s planning to spark another revolution with its next game, episodic anthology The Dark Pictures.
A horror game that played on the tropes of slasher movies, Until Dawn saw a group of teens menaced in a mountaintop cabin. It was the kind of story where all those horny teens make bad decisions, except it put the power to make those decisions in your hands, and it felt like your choices had actual consequences. As a contained story, most of the playable characters could (and did) die. You were always on the edge of your seat.
Supermassive’s return to narrative horror gaming is episodic, but the dev’s not removing any of that feeling of consequence. Instead, each episode of The Dark Pictures is a self-contained story – it’s an anthology series. That title’s more like a label for small spooky games than one long, drawn-out tale. It’s the perfect format for chilling fun.
Supermassive will use this freedom to explore a different type of horror in each episode. Creativity and surprise are key at getting those frights across. The first episode, Man Of Medan, is about some teens getting in over their heads on a sailing trip, involving an abandoned WW2 ship. We’ve been hands-on with it, and it seems there’ll be plenty of opportunities for divergence in the story, like characters not sticking around (because they will be dead, oops). After that, being an anthology, The Dark Pictures could go literally anywhere next.
SUPERMASSIVE WILL EXPLORE A DIFFERENT TYPE OF HORROR IN EACH EPISODE. What scary situations do you want to see? Let us know at opm@futurenet.com