News
Frictional Games Has Two Games in Development
Developer Frictional Games is taking a break from the lengthy development cycles that brought us the acclaimed Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the slow-burn existential sci-fi horror game SOMA — the latter took more than five years to ship — to try something different.
“For the first time in company history we’re now developing two games at the same time,” explains Thomas Grip, Frictional’s creative director, in a post on the company’s website. “This will require non-trivial changes in how we manage the team, but in the end we’re very sure it’ll be worth it all.”
“By having two projects going at the same time, we can release games at much higher frequency. In turn, this let us be more experimental as we don’t have to rely as much on each new game being a big money generator. We’re still in the early phases of this transition, but it’s shaping up really well so far.”
The middling success of SOMA is another reason for the change. Despite its considerably more advanced modding integration compared to its predecessor, it’s never caught on with modders. Fans and critics have been somewhat divided on its merits, but the majority have praised its ambitious narrative while criticizing its repetitive design.
In the six months since its release, SOMA has just about broke even with 250k in sales. Grip compares it to the similarly-themed Firewatch, which has managed to sell half a million copies in its first month.
Its blend of sci-fi and horror has divided some, and Frictional has noticed. Grip continues, “if we make another sci-fi game, we’ll probably tone down the horror elements and make the sci-fi narrative more prominent. The reverse would be true if we made a new horror game.”
With that in mind, what would you like to see come next from Frictional?
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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