Video Games
Upcoming Indie Game ‘Dryad’ Draws Inspiration From Solid Sources
We generally don’t receive many emails directly from indie creators to check out their work, but the ones we do get have some cool premises to them. Case in point: Dryad by Ultranite, a point-and-click free roaming game inspired by films like Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man and the classic Bride of Frankenstein. You can currently check out on its Game Jolt site. The game will also see a release on Steam and on itch.io (naturally).
Dryad centres on Josh Miller, a true-crime author who is in the process of writing a book based on “The Tellus Murders”, an incident which saw four camp counselors brutally murdered. As any good writer will do, Miller heads to the campgrounds in order to do a bit of research. However, as you would expect with how these things go, Miller ends up in over his head, having to escape.
Currently, the game is still very much in development, but according to the developers, we should see a demo for the game “in the coming months”. This is important, since the game already has a release date of April 22 of next year. We hope to hear more about Dryad as the development continues.
Video Games
Bloody Body Horror Revealed in ‘Stellar Blade: Blood Rain’, Currently in Development [Trailer]
Shift Up has shifted things dramatically from 2024’s action-adventure game Stellar Blade, offering up a body horror bonanza in the newly announced sequel, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain. The sequel is currently early in development, but if the trailer is any indication, players will be in for plenty of body horror.
Continuing the story from the original Stellar Blade, Blood Rain will star a new protagonist named Eve. Earth has been abandoned, and what is left of humanity has fled to a Colony in outer space.
Shift Up had mentioned during a Q&A following its latest earnings presentation last month that development on Blood Rain (which was still unannounced at the time) was progressing smoothly, and was on track to meet their targeted quality standards.
Shift Up stated that with this new title it would be transitioning to a first-party service model, effectively moving away from the restrictions the game experienced with original publisher Sony, which had the game under an exclusivity agreement for the PlayStation 5. “This will allow us to lead marketing strategies that fully reflect the distinctive identity of the Stellar Blade IP, and we expect to communicate the unique appeal of its universe to players more directly and effectively.”
Whether this means that Xbox Players will finally be able to play the original game (or its sequel) is still not clear. Meanwhile, Stellar Blade is reportedly being ported to the Nintendo Switch 2, but no official confirmation has been made.