Interview: Jukai Studio talks psychological thriller Stray Souls
pcgamesinsider.bizAt GDC this year, we were able to sit down with publisher Versus Evil to check out its 2023 slate. Versus Evil is an independent video game publisher with a reputation for publishing critically acclaimed indie games, including the Banner Saga franchise.
We met the team in a hotel in San Francisco just across the road from the hustle of the show floor. Among the titles on display was Stray Souls, developed by Jukai Studio, and we took the chance to interview the team in an exclusive chat after the conference.
“Versus Evil reached out to us when they came across our Steam page,” explains CEO Artur Łączkowski. “From the start, we could tell that they were extremely passionate about the game.”
Stray Souls is a psychological horror game inspired by the likes of Alan Wake. It features boss battles reminiscent of Silent Hill or Resident Evil, and it’s all rendered in photorealistic graphics using Unreal Engine 5.
The story revolves around Daniel, a young man who inherits a house on his 18th birthday, only to become entangled in a web of eerie occurrences caused by his family's occult past. It thrusts you into a foreboding world where the focus is less on action-heavy gameplay and more on unravelling a sinister mystery.
The game features a mix of puzzles and combat – you can choose to fight or flee from enemies, and there are a variety of options for how to progress through the game.
After the commotion of GDC, CEO Artur Łączkowski and audio director and lead writer Pete Wicher give us more details.
Jukai Studio solidified near the beginning of 2022, with founding members Artur Laczkowski and Pete Wicher coming together to develop Stray Souls. Artur comes from working with Bloober Team on The Medium and a few other titles, and
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