He watched us silently.
This was in late 2015, but he’s still there today. 7 feet tall. A larger-than-life, stunningly accurate recreation of the psycho from Until Dawn, complete with blue overalls and a terrifying mannequin mask, spent months conceiving to make it as scary as possible. We’re used to him by now, but he’s still getting responses from new recruits and visitors.
Psycho has seen it all. Our group sat in the cinema’s plush chairs in the Supermassive office. Meanwhile, CEO Pete Samuels had plans for a new concept, Dark He Pictures, his anthology. A series of branching cinematic games exploring different subgenres of horror. The game he is 4-5 hours, short enough to be played in one sitting. Each game has his two multiplayer modes. One is an online connected mode where you can play the entire game with your friends, and the other is Couch His Co-op mode where a group of friends can get together and play a horror movie.
It was a simple and compelling idea. But it was also very ambitious. Creating a new franchise from scratch is no easy task, but two-player co-op was also very difficult. No one has ever done it before.
I remember thinking very clearly. Must Please work on it.
And so I got to work on it.
I was lucky enough to be the Game Director of Man of Medan, a spooky ghost ship tale. And now I’m lucky to be the Game Director of the brutal serial killer story The Devil In Me. And it was a great ride.
In between those games was the psychological and historical horror of Little Hope, set in the eponymous New England town. wilderness.
The Devil in Me has another psycho. This is the story of a crew member making a documentary about American serial killer HH Holmes who is trapped in a “murder hotel” by a HH Holmes-inspired serial killer.
Looking back at the first four games, there are so many series highlights that it’s hard to pick a favorite. Will Conrad be chased through the rusty corridors of a World War II freighter by a living manifestation of his worst desires and fears? Or is it the touching and charged relationship between Jason and Salim, whose deadly foes are mutual respect in a blood-soaked monster-infested cave? Or one of Devil in Me’s gruesome excess deaths?
The most exciting thing for me is finding an audience for these games. Cinematic horror with an emphasis on relationships and storytelling is an acquired taste, but if you like it, you’ll love it.
And fan art, tier lists, theoretical romantic character pairings (Jalim, Conbrad, Johngela!), hints we’ve generously sprinkled throughout the game, and crazy fan theories (some of which are even scary). Loved seeing our growing community attached. correct). Sometimes the community seems to know our characters and games better than we do.They love what we do and we love them too.
We are always looking to improve the Dark Pictures formula. We’ve developed new ways to tell stories, reinvented how to capture performance, and improved the art pipeline to make textures and lighting more grounded and realistic.
We’ve also introduced gameplay improvements and tweaks per game: 3rd People camera, difficulty, QTE warnings, accessibility options. Improving the quality of life that makes the experiences we create easier and more enjoyable.
The Devil In Me introduces a number of significant gameplay enhancements.
There is a set of new exploration actions such as climbing, jumping, vaulting, crouching, crawling, shimmying and balancing, allowing players to be more active as they explore the terrifying environments they have created. Players can also run to explore at their own pace. And when danger exists, they can hide from it if they can find a safe place.
It also introduces a simple inventory with tools that characters can use to survive the horrors of the Murder Hotel. Players can use items held by the film’s crew, but can also find other tools in the environment. .
And then there are the puzzles that confuse and confuse the player. Rewire fuse boxes, find hidden codes, and move objects to create new paths in the world.
All this packed into a new run time of over 7 hours. One of the things we’ve learned on this journey is that sometimes you can benefit from spending a little more time with your characters to tell the stories that need to be told.
The entire Devil In Me team hopes you enjoy your stay at the Homicide Hotel. I hear some rooms are to die for. We are proud of what we created and can’t wait for you to play it.
But before I sign off, I’ll hand things over to the rest of the team and talk about what’s come so far and what’s next.
“Season 1 of The Dark Pictures was a blast. As an audio team, what I enjoy most is figuring out how to make each game’s soundscape fresh and different from the rest. With so much variety in designs, narratives and subgenres, we had the opportunity to create a completely different audio experience for newcomers and horror fans alike, while of course offering the credo of horror audio.
Musically, we worked closely with Jason Graves to start Man of Medan and the overall score on ¾ to reflect the movement of the waves. Through Little Hope investigating the late 17-year-oldth Instruments of the New England century, building the entire soundtrack around choral chants, broken pianos and detuned gurdys. In House of Ashes, the instrumentation switches from orchestral to synths as the narrative commentary plunges into act three, with a single pitching motif that seems to be a consistently terrifying reminder of an impending threat to the broader narrative. connects very different universes across time. And now, The Devil In Me, a soundtrack inspired by Bernard Herrmann’s score, mixes classical and operatic works by Schubert, Pergolesi and Rossini juxtaposing tragic deaths, all in an accidental orchestral horror. is wrapped in underscores.
Authenticity is of the utmost importance, and the challenge was to capture the primary environments of all the titles in the anthology from an audio standpoint. , deep forests and, most recently, majestic homes, it captures every sound, like a character in a game: doors, switches, footsteps, engines, hull claps, water. And most importantly, we want to inspire spaces so that all diegetic sounds in the game can reproduce the unique sounds, materials, and reflections of those spaces in exactly the same way. This was a huge team effort across all audio subdisciplines, and combining this work with a full spatial audio implementation has allowed us to bring unparalleled hyper-realistic immersion to the cinematic experience.
Using the PS5 controller’s haptic feedback feature to further immerse the player in the environment makes The Devil In Me’s action and scares unbelievable. Improved subtlety brings weather, wind, and rain closer to the player experience through uniquely crafted haptic assets, making it feel like you’re actually there. Penetrates the player’s personal space to reinforce fear and heightened fear, empowering these key fear areas with carefully timed haptic feedback, playing with intensity, timing and frequency to immerse the experience Add another layer of type content. Every unique haptic we send is to distinguish his queue. ”
– Bernie Pratt – Audio Director
“We feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as a studio as the first season of the Dark Pictures anthology draws to a close. We started this series to tell stories. It’s amazing to look back at how they were developed from concept to release, now that we’ve had a sneak peek at our talented team to bring our sleeping ideas to life and bring them We’ve unlocked to the public, and the public has asked for more!We started this journey with eight games in mind, but new stories are piling up faster than ever.Series Creative Director As, I can’t wait to show you where we’re headed in Season 2 and beyond.
– Will Doyle – Creative Director
