Amnesia: The Bunker developer Frictional Video games is trying to reduce on horror video games “to present better give attention to different emotional qualities”.
Chatting with 80.lv, Frictional artistic director Thomas Grip echoed the feelings of fellow horror studio Bloober Workforce, which additionally just lately mentioned it was stepping away from the video games it was historically recognized for.
“Whereas all of our video games have been horror indirectly, what we actually attempt to do is to get a form of playable immersion,” Grip mentioned. “We need to give the participant some type of immersive fantasy, be that being a [World War 1] soldier trapped in a bunker or a robotic caught on the backside of the ocean.
“Horror video games naturally are the place feelings are entrance and centre. Video games actually excel at this. Nonetheless, we’re additionally exploring themes exterior of creating issues spooky.”
Grip defined that Frictional has made video games about non-horror themes, like caring for an unborn youngster in Rebirth or concepts of consciousness in SOMA, however simply packaged them in a horror setting. “It’s not in regards to the worry, it’s in regards to the holistic fantasy we ship in every of our tales,” he mentioned.
“For future tasks, I believe we’ll reduce a bit on the horror points as a way to give better give attention to different emotional qualities. I’m assured that these video games will nonetheless really feel like Frictional ones. The immersion, the non-public journey, and a holistic imaginative and prescient are what I see as defining traits of a Frictional recreation — not simply horror as such.”
Bloober Workforce, the developer behind the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake and different horror video games like The Medium, Blair Witch, and Observer, made the same announcement in June. As a substitute of stepping away from the style altogether, nevertheless, Bloober Workforce mentioned it was transferring on from psychological horror to one thing extra “mass-market”.
Frictional had discovered important success with the horror style, with its most up-to-date launch of Amnesia: The Bunker being praised by followers (holding a 92% “very optimistic” score on Steam) and critics.
In our 8/10 overview, IGN mentioned: “Amnesia: The Bunker is a smaller, extra self-contained episode within the groundbreaking horror franchise that exhibits Frictional nonetheless has some chilling new methods up their sleeves.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll discuss The Witcher all day.