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Big Things Are Coming to ‘Darkwood’
It’s been too long since I last wrote about Acid Wizard Studio’s atmospheric indie horror game Darkwood. The ambitious, and often genuinely frightening, amalgam of numerous genres — part open-world roguelike, part horror adventure RPG– hasn’t stopped evolving since it released on Steam two years ago, though support for the game has slowed down lately.
The lack of updates is quickly addressed in a post on the developer’s blog, along with the added promise that “the next alpha will be the biggest yet!” Some highlights:
A new chapter
This means a new biome, locations, NPCs, enemies, items, objects and mechanics! Stuff that explodes, new uses for the shovel, rebuilding parts of your hideout and more!The Swamp
There are unique dangers hiding beneath the surface of the many lakes littered around this biome. Traversing water will require a different approach than walking on solid ground. There is also a dense fog, which appears from time to time.Vines and chains
You can expect to encounter various uses of this mechanic, including chain traps or things that crawl on the ground and try to catch and immobilise you.New enemy behaviour
The enemies introduced in this update use more advanced tactics than the existing ones. This includes submerging underwater or underground, surrounding movement and sideways dodging, and reacting to your field of view.Performance improvements
I’ve spent a lot of time on optimizing performance and memory usage. In particular, in previous versions of Darkwood, the lighting system could cause occasional stuttering due to memory allocation, but no more in the next alpha!
No word on when this update will be ready. Stay tuned.
We have the Jason Universe to thank for the recent return of Jason Voorhees, with the short film Sweet Revenge and Jason’s arrival in Dead by Daylight helping to bring the hockey mask-wearing horror icon back into our lives. What else is planned, you ask?
In a chat with Variety this week, Jason Universe’s Robbie Barsamian teases that everything we’ve seen up to this point is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Jason’s return.
“We’ve been busy behind the scenes laying the foundation that everyone is finally starting to see come to life, but this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Barsamian teases.
“We have a thrilling lineup of new projects that we can’t wait to share more details on soon.”
Barsamian also notes during the chat with Variety, “We want to give fans fresh takes on what they love most about Jason and continue to expand his world in authentic ways that resonate with horror fans today.” One of those expansions will take the form of the upcoming Peacock and A24 series “Crystal Lake,” which stars Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees.
“The Crystal Lake TV series will take fans back in time to tell the story of how Pamela Voorhees came to be the mother of all slashers,” Barsamian tells Variety this week.
“Crystal Lake” premieres October 15 on Peacock.
Callum Vinson (“Chucky”) is playing young Jason in “Crystal Lake,” which will tell the origin story of the masked slasher who has stalked the grounds of Crystal Lake for decades.
Last year, the Jason Universe team had teased that a new movie and a new video game are top priorities for the near future. But at this time we have no updates on either front.
Stay tuned for more from the Jason Universe.
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