Creepy abandoned houses with poor lighting and creatures with rows of teeth for faces are some of the things folks can look forward to experiencing in developer Pworx Studios’ recently announced psychological horror game The Vale. Set in New England, this game follows Isaac Dempsey, a recovering alcoholic who’s dealing with a failed career as a once-successful movie producer, a wife he suspects doesn’t love him anymore and a son he can no longer relate to.
The real horror story here is the waking nightmare that is this poor man’s busted ass life. Compared to the problems he faces on a daily basis, that gentleman I mentioned with the mouth-full of shark’s teeth is practically adorable.
When Isaac comes home one evening to try and keep his life from falling apart completely, his wife and son are nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, while Isaac’s family isn’t home, he is not alone.
Pworx seems intent on getting inside the player’s head with this game. They’re going to earn their claim that this will be a psychological horror game. Varun Mohindra, lead developer on The Vale went so far as to tell MoviePilot “we consider ourselves failures if we cannot mess with the player’s mind, and it is a task that we give grave importance to,” so they’re taking this seriously.
That’s not to say there won’t be plenty moments that send you bounce you right out of your seat. That shouldn’t be too difficult when the enemies are able to traverse walls and ceilings. That won’t make me paranoid at all.
I don’t normally judge a game based on what amounts to little more than 15 seconds of footage, but I can’t think of many other games that impressed with such a woefully brief teaser trailer, so I’m going to break that rule today and say this game has definite nightmare potential.
The Vale is tentatively slated for a mid-2016 release, with plans for a public alpha closer to Halloween. Only PC has been confirmed, but Pworx says they hope to add more platforms eventually.
The lovely people at MoviePilot were able to glean much more information about this game in their interview with the developer. You should really check that out.
