Bloober Team "closing the era" of psychological horror games
Bloober Team is moving on from the psychological horror games it is known for, with the recent Layers of Fear remaster being its last game of the genre.
That said, it's still sticking with horror. Instead, Bloober is now making «mass-market horror».
What does that mean? Bloober says it will result in a renewed focus on gameplay over atmosphere, owing to its games being described as «walking simulators».
Studio co-founder Piotr Babieno didn't deny that criticism in a recent interview with Engadget.
«We focused on the story, we focused on the mood, we focused on the quality of graphics and music, but we didn't put a lot of attention on the gameplay mechanics,» he said. «It wasn't our target. But we decided that there was a ceiling that we couldn't break if we did not deliver something fresh, something new.»
As such: «This year is like closing the era of making psychological horror games. Right now we are going into Bloober Team 3.0, making mass-market horror.»
Bloober's previous games include Observer, Blair Witch and The Medium, which all thrived on atmosphere over gameplay.
Of course, the underlying sentiment of «mass-market horror» is commercial success, perhaps a key reason for the developer's next game being the remake of Konami's Silent Hill 2 — a game that is, ironically, a psychological horror but part of an existing long-running series.
«We decided that our next titles should be much more mass-market oriented,» said Babieno. «We'd like to talk with more people. We'd like to deliver our ideas, with our DNA, not by environment or storytelling, but by action. So all of our future titles will have a lot of gameplay mechanics. They will be much bigger.»
Babieno also commented on the state of horror games in 2023 and
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