A new video recently found its way online for the upcoming horror game called Visage. A near 22 minute gameplay preview was posted up by IGN, featuring gameplay, thrills, frills and bumps that rock the bed at night… and not the kind of bumps coming from out of your parents’ room when your pops is out of town and your “uncle” comes to visit.
Sadsquare Studio’s first-person horror title has been in the news a couple of times before, showcasing some jump-scares and serious inspiration from Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. The latest video seems to capture more of the P.T. Demo’s style of psychological horror.
You can check out the new video below, which takes a look at what appears to be another house on the block where you can examine stuff, look at photos, and listen closely as footsteps creak across the warped floorboards in the house.
Like most first-person horror titles released in recent years, you don’t have any weapons or any way to defend yourself. Instead you can pick things up, examine items in the drawer, and follow the atmospheric sounds.
The first three minutes are pretty boring, with just some strange sounds occurring and dark lighting setting the mood. By the four minute mark things begin to pick up when the player uncovers one of the creepiest looking standing mirrors around. The mirror, however, disappears out of sight and teleports downstairs.
After venturing downstairs to examine the mirror, it disappears again and teleports upstairs.
The player then heads upstairs to uncover the mirror once more, only to find that what’s being reflected in the mirror isn’t actually what’s present in reality.
After retrieving a key to the garage, a key to the station wagon, and picking up a reaching hook on the passenger side floor, the player returns upstairs to venture into the attic.
In the attic the player finds a rocking chair that is moving on its own; it’s the same rocking chair that was moving in the teleporting mirror.
After venturing through the attic and landing into the master bedroom, things start to get super creepy, and the atmosphere becomes overwhelming foreboding.
In a way, it feels like a one-trick pony a bit. It’s as if the game took what made the P.T. Demo scary and then focused an entire experience around that concept.
Now this isn’t to say that the game may not be good, because it’s certainly well made with high enough production qualities to feel legitimately creepy, but it’s hard to see it other than one of those theme park horror games that seems closer to a walking sim than an actual horror title.
Still, props to the designers for making the environments feel absolutely unsettling.
You can keep track of the development of Visage by visiting the official SadSquare Studio website.
