Tell me if you’ve heard this one before.
Earlier this year, a handful of industry veterans came together to found an indie studio, and their debut game is going to be of the horror persuasion. Sound familiar? It should. Some of our most anticipated horror games are coming from indie devs that were founded by industry vets, including Perception, Inner Chains and Outlast II.
It’s clear that gamers want more original horror games, and it just so happens that there’s a disproportionally large number of experienced game developers who are leaving bigger studios in order to make horror games. It’s a lovely thing to see, and I have a feeling this trend won’t be slowing down anytime soon.
Round Table Games was founded earlier this year by former Blizzard, Riot Games and ZeniMax devs, making it the latest indie startup to spring up in this manner. They’ve only just begun working on their first game, but we already have our first details.
Developed in collaboration with Anti-Matter Games, Deal With the Devil is an Unreal Engine 4-powered horror game that’s coming to PC and consoles. It “aims to bridge the gap between narrative-driven experience and first-person horror” by providing gamers with “a story-rich, first-person globetrotting journey through the sinister side of the Roaring Twenties.”
Set just after the first World War in a world that’s been devastated by the Spanish Flu, the game follows a woman named Amelia Woods, who “walks the tightrope between Champion and Anti-Hero.” We don’t yet know what makes her special, but whatever it is, she’s been tasked with solving the “mysteries of ancient, forbidden places, hidden beneath the Art-Deco Glamour of a world filled with eldritch horrors.”
Coincidentally, Deal with the Devil is the second horror game set during the apocalyptic Spanish Flu that I’ve written about today.
No word on a release date, but I suspect it’s still a ways off.
