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Your Horror Game Release Schedule for May
May is usually the last “good” month in terms of new releases, it’s purpose to toss out a few more games to keep us occupied and out of the deadly summer sun until things pick back up around Aug-Sept. Around this time last year, I was eagerly waiting for a chance to be the bad guy for a bit by murdering fools as Jason Voorhees in Mortal Kombat X or stepping into the bloodied boots of The Executioner in the third DLC release for The Evil Within. This month sort of has its own theme going on too, but it’s more about re-releases. Let’s have a look.
Sylvio Remastered
With Sylvio Remastered, developer Stroboskop hopes to breathe new life into their open-world horror game about a woman named who uses the voices of the dead to uncover and vanquish an evil curse and a wicked family cult that have taken up residence in an abandoned park.
The remaster replaces the old game engine for Unity 5, and in addition to that, it brings a remade GUI, improved EVP mechanic, and full controller support. It’s available free-of-charge to owners of the original Sylvio, who can get it now in the form of an update.
Release Date: May 2 (PC)
The Park
Funcom’s The Park was met with a mostly warm reception when it released on Steam back in October, and now it’s headed to consoles. The game is a spin-off of the pseudo-horror MMO The Secret World — also definitely worth checking out — that follows a mother as she spends a night in an abandoned amusement park searching for her son. It’s relatively short (3-4 hours) length keeps the game from outstaying its welcome, and the atmosphere is top notch.
Release Date: May 3 (PS4, XBO)
Neverending Nightmares
Matt Galgenbach’s nightmarish psychological horror game Neverending Nightmares is finally bringing its unique brand of terror to the PS4 and PS Vita today (May 4 for Europe). If you haven’t played this one yet, you probably should. Just know that this game is not for the squeamish or weak of stomach.
Release Date: May 3 (PS4, Vita)
Doom
The series that defined a decade is getting a reboot, and it looks glorious. I’ve spent some time with the new Doom and from what I’ve seen, it looks as if id Software might’ve actually found a way to modernize everything we love about the series — the fast-paced combat, addictive arena-based multiplayer, badass weapons, intimidating enemies and the buckets of gore that coats just about everything — without losing what made these games so influential in the first place.
And sure, the lack of co-op in the story mode is disappointing until the community gets cozy with the SnapMap modding tools that are shipping with all versions of the game and starts churning out custom co-op campaigns. Based on my experience with games like LittleBigPlanet, that’ll take about a week.
Release Date: May 13 (PC, PS4, XBO)
Dead Island Definitive Edition
The issues with Dead Island 2 have caused some serious issues for the already troubled franchise, and despite having considerably more time than its main competitor, Deep Silver is losing the war for zombie fans’ cash monies to the wildly successful Dying Light, which was developed by Dead Island creator Techland. The Dead Island: Definitive Edition isn’t going to change that, but it should sate our appetites for undead tomfoolery as we continue to wait for Sumo Digital to finish Dead Island 2.
Release Date: May 31 (PC, PS4, XBO)
Oxenfree
For the unfamiliar, Oxenfree is an always charming, often thoughtful and occasionally even deeply unsettling video game debut from Night School Studio. “Oxenfree is all humor, horror and heart,” writes my younger self in a review of the PC version, “It doesn’t need to rely on gimmicks, and with the exception of some light backtracking that could’ve easily been solved by a jog button, no attempt is made to pad its 3-5 hour running time with irrelevant errands and tedium.”
Don’t overlook this one. I promise you’ll regret it.
Release Date: May 31 (PS4)
Asemblance
Asemblance is a PS4 exclusive psychological horror game — the first in a planned series — with a surreal narrative that blends “The Twilight Zone”, “The X-Files”, and “Black Mirror”.
Release Date: TBA May (PS4)
Crowdfunding Campaigns
Voracious readers of Bloody Disgusting’s video game section will recognize Ghost Theory as the game I desperately want to play because while I’m super into the paranormal, I’m not quite interested enough to go and record otherworldly voices or seek out floating orbs to take selfies with.
This game aims to solve that problem by adapting the daily life of a clairvoyance paranormal investigator into a video game. The team at Dreadlocks is even visiting real “haunted” locales all over the world so they can recreate each to be fully explorable in-game, with or without a virtual reality headset. It’s an incredibly promising, and original, approach that sets this supernatural horror game apart from the rest.
Ghost Theory needs to raise another ~$30k to reach its $71k funding goal and there’s only nine days left to get there. If you’d like to give them a hand, you can support it over here.
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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