He looks at us calmly.
This was in late 2015, but it's still there today. 7 feet tall. A large-scale and incredibly accurate psychological recreation of Until Dawn, complete with a blue jumpsuit and a creepy mannequin mask. We've all gotten used to it, but it still elicits a reaction from recruits and visitors alike.
The psychologist was watching everything. A group of us sat in the plush theater chairs at Supermassive's office as CEO Pete Samuels revealed his plans for a new concept, the Dark Pictures anthology. A series of branching cinematics that explore various sub-genres of horror. Games last 4-5 hours, which is enough to play in one sitting. Each game will have two multiplayer modes: online, where you can play the entire game with a friend, and couch, where a group of friends can get together and play a horror movie.
It was a simple, compelling idea. But he was also extremely ambitious. Creating a new franchise from scratch is no small feat, but getting two players to work together was also really difficult; no one had done it before.
I clearly remember thinking. "I have to work on this."
And I started working on it.
I was lucky enough to be the Game Director on a spooky ghost ship story called The Man from Medan. And now I'm lucky enough to stage my gritty serial killer story The Devil Within. And it was a fantastic trip.
In between these games, we experienced the psychological and historical horror of Little Hope, set in the New England town of the same name, and we experienced the insane action horror of House of Ashes. the desert
The Devil Inside Me has another psyche. This is the story of a film crew making a documentary about the American serial killer H.H. About Holmes. A serial killer inspired by H.H. Holmes ended up in the "murder hotel".
Looking back at our first four games, there are so many that it's hard to pick the best. Is Conrad walking the rusted corridors of a World War II freighter a living manifestation of his worst desires and fears? Or the gorgeous demon character designs in Little Hope, each inspired by a long-forgotten brutal murder. Or is it the exciting, tense relationship between Jason and Salim, arch-enemies who find mutual respect and brotherhood in the blood-soaked, monster-infested caves? Or is it one of the gruesome and extreme deaths in The Devil Within?
The most interesting thing for me is that we found an audience for these games, and they found us. Cinematic horror, with its emphasis on relationships and stories, is amateurish, but they like it.
We've had fun following our growing community of fan art, tier lists, theoretical character pairings (Jalim, Konbrad, Jongela!), hints scattered throughout the game, crazy fan theories (some of which are terrifying). exact). Sometimes it feels like the community knows our characters and games better than we do. They love what we do and we love them for it.
We are always trying to improve the Dark Pictures resolution. We've developed new ways to tell stories, reimagined how we render, and improved our art pipeline to make textures and lighting more grounded and realistic.
And with each game we've added improvements and tweaks to the game: third- person cameras, difficulty, QTE cues, accessibility options. Improving the quality of life that makes our experience easier and more enjoyable.
In The Devil in Me, we are introducing a number of important gameplay improvements.
There are a number of new exploration activities - climb, jump, jump, crouch, crawl, swing and balance - that allow the player to be more active when exploring the terrifying environment we've created. Players will also be able to run and explore at their own pace. If there is danger, they can hide from it when they find a safe place.
We also provide a simple list of tools that characters can use to escape the horrors of the murderous hotel. Players will be able to use items that the film crew takes with them, as well as find other devices. And sometimes those tools can be updated, broken or lost.
And there will be puzzles to confuse and confound the player. Vaults to open, secret codes to find, objects to move to create new paths in the world.
All of this will add up to over 7 hours of new work time. What we've learned on this journey is that sometimes we spend a little more time with our characters to tell the story we need to tell.
So the Devil in Me team hopes you enjoy your stay at the killer hotel. We've heard some rooms are to die for. We're proud of what we've done and can't wait for you to play it!
But before we finish, I'll turn it over to the rest of the team to talk about what happened before and after.
“The first season of Dark Pictures was an absolute blast. As a sound design team, we have a lot of fun learning how to make the sound design for each game so different and fresh than the others. We had the opportunity to create completely different sound effects for both beginners and horror fanatics, using the principles of horror audio, of course, because the game design, stories and subgenres are very diverse.
Musically, working closely with Jason Graves, we started with Medan Man and a whole part in ¾ to reflect the movement of the waves; In Little Hope, he explores the instruments of late 17th -century New England, creating an entire soundtrack of choral songs, broken pianos, and untuned harps. As the story moves into the third act, "House of Ashes" switches instruments from orchestra to synth, connecting many different universes into a larger narrative arc with a single sonic motif as a constant reminder of impending danger; and now The Devil Within Me, a soundtrack inspired by the music of Bernard Herrmann, mixed with classical and operatic works by Schubert, Pergalesi and Rossini, juxtaposing tragic deaths wrapped in an undercurrent of random orchestral horror.
Authenticity is important, and we've tried to capture the original environment in terms of sound for each title in the anthology. From steel-hulled warships, small ships surviving storms on the high seas, dense forests and a newly built beautiful house, as the characters of the game, we capture all their sounds, doors, switches, stairs, engines, hull flaps, water. bounces, and most importantly, we pulse the spaces so we can reproduce the acoustics, materials, and reflections specific to those spaces for all sounds in the game. It's a huge team effort across all audio disciplines, and by combining that work with a full spatial audio implementation, we've been able to bring unprecedented hyper-real immersion to the cinema experience.
- Barney Pratt is a sound engineer
The use of haptic feedback capabilities on the PS5 controller to further immerse the player in the environment is incredible in The Devil In Me. Increased subtlety allows us to bring weather, wind and rain closer to the player experience with uniquely designed tactile assets, creating a sense of real presence. We use players' personal space to heighten panic and fear, adding power to these key areas of horror with carefully measured tactile feedback, playing with strength, timing and frequency, and adding another layer of content to the experience and subtlety. turn on the player. distinguish all the unique tactile signals we send them.
“As the first season of Dark Image Anthology comes to a close, it feels like a huge accomplishment as a studio. We started this series to tell stories - scary, scary stories that refuse to be buried in our muck. Now that our first four games are live, it's amazing to look back and see how they've evolved from concept to release. Our talented teams breathe life into dormant ideas and bring them to the public. And the public wanted more. We started this journey with eight games, but new stories are coming together faster than ever. As the show's creative director, I'm excited to see where we go in Season 2 and beyond. We have such attractions to show you. "
- Will Doyle is the creative director
