Latest news with #BlumhouseGames
CNET
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Crisol is a BioShock-Like Cult Horror Shooter Using Your Blood For Bullets
One of the best things about Summer Game Fest is discovering games that blend some of your favorite classics into something wholly new. Crisol: Theater of Idols is a game with clear BioShock influence in its first-person shooter exploration, but melds some cult horror from games like Resident Evil 4 into the mix. On top of it all, to reload your gun, you've gotta sacrifice your own blood -- and take a chunk from your own health bar. It's a novel mechanic that combines with the gothic, nautical setting for a promising approach to horror action games. Crisol is being developed by Vermila Studios, which was acquired by Embracer Group in 2020, but the game is being published by Blumhouse Games. After playing through a 20-minute demo of his new game, the studio's CEO David Carrasco explained how its game is a course correction for horror games. Each gun has its own blood-reloading animation -- for this pistol, spikes jut out from the handle and pierce to palm to draw their tithe to reload. Vermila Studios "We've thought for a long time that survival horror was getting to where you didn't have that survival element so much," Carrasco said. "We wanted to give it an extra layer of tension by using your blood, your holy blood, to defeat these unholy monsters." I certainly felt it in the demo. As I stalked the moonlit cobblestone streets of an island teeming with unholy, creepy marionette creatures, knowing every missed shot was a bit of lost life. Survival horror games give players weapons to quench fear (or in their absence, amplify it, as with the Amnesia series), but tying my guns' efficacy to my health made me slow down and pick my shots, amping up the fear as enemies closed in -- "keeping that tension constantly in the back of your head," as Carrasco put it. While I felt the slightest concern for players with poor aim, there are health-restoring syringes sitting in the corners of abandoned shops and buildings. Crisol also has a mechanic where players can harvest blood (and thus, chunks of life) from dead animals lying around. Tying weapons to health is a twist on another survival horror game trope of saving heavy weapons ammo for dangerous bosses later on, Carrasco noted -- in Crisol, you'll always be able to use your big guns…for a price. In Crisol, players take on the role of Gabriel, captain of the Tercios Del Sol, a command of soldiers under a sun-worshiping religion that takes on holy missions. He receives a divine order to go to an old island that's spun off into its own sea religion, Tormentosa, and deal with idol statues that have come alive and begun rampaging around. When I asked what inspired Crisol, Carrasco was up-front that Bioshock and a number of Resident Evil games (4, 7 and 8 specifically) had the right mix of artistic design and gameplay Vermila Studios was looking for. Dishonored was another source for its heavy emphasis on art. "Sprinkle in Spanish folklore, religious undertones, and in the end, with all of those fantastic and crazy and brutal inspirations make something that will be unique and memorable," Carrasco said. Marionette-like idol enemies that have come to life on the island. Vermila Studios Spanish folklore is underutilized compared to the Japanese, Nordic and American mythology that appears in many games, Carrasco said. Vermila Studios, based in the Spanish city of Madrid, drew on its home country's history and culture -- and though the island players visit in Crisol doesn't explicitly take place in Spain, players will be able to connect the dots with the cathedrals, old architecture, polychromatic statues and stained-glass windows that make up the game's visual language. That blend applies to religion, too: players will run into a faith following on Crisol's island that follows religions of the sea and sun, which I saw a bit of in the demo, with deification of mermaids and other pseudo-pagan effects. But Carrasco acknowledges the Catholic influence in the game, too. "We've taken a lot of religious inspiration from different religious, like the Catholic Church, which has a lot of deeply rooted components in the Spanish culture, but [also] some other, older religions, even cults from very old history," Carrasco said, affirming that there's no explicit connection to the Catholic church or Christianity. "We do have holy blood, but it's not like a Christ or any connection to the reality of religions nowadays." As I wander the cobbled streets of the demo, I see how all these elements blend into Crisol's visual language. Vermila Studio has a larger-than-usual art department, Carrasco noted, with around 20 people working for five years scribbling out drafts of enemies and locations to give the game a look and feel that felt familiar, fantastical and plausible at the same time -- that it really could be on an island out to sea. Vermila Studios As players explore the 10- to 14-hour game, they'll experience the creeping horror of the cult's presence, but Vermila isn't relying on a lot of jump scares, Carrasco said, which can lose their impact if overused. Rather, the game will rely on the tension of enemies behind and pursuing you, from those you run out of blood bullets (and health) to defeat, to those unaffected by your weapons. In the second half of the demo, I ran into what Carrasco was talking about: a tall, hulking marionette monster with an impossibly wide smile that called out to me, shrugging off my bullets as I darted into buildings to evade its pursuit. Like other invulnerable pursuit bosses (Mr. X in Resident Evil 2, Jack Baker in Resident Evil 7), I had to sneak around while finding bolt cutters to clip chained-off doors. I also had to roll up a gate agonizingly slowly, expecting my stalker to close in on me at any second. I escaped into a mermaid-themed restaurant and the demo ended, but the vibes of the game stuck with me. They clearly appealed to Blumhouse, too, who were interested in Crisol's dramatic art style and its blood mechanics. For Vermila Studios, Blumhouse was a good fit for its track record of bringing in new artists and projects that may be smaller but bring something new to the table. "For us, being a part of this Blumhouse lineup is just like a partnership made in heaven -- or hell, maybe -- where they understand horror and what tickles that," Carrasco said. Crisol: Theater of Idols is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox later in 2025.
CNET
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Cozy Horror Game Grave Seasons Is Stardew Valley Plagued by a Serial Killer
At Summer Game Fest, I tried a game that was bold enough to ask: Why doesn't Stardew Valley have more murder? Grave Seasons, due out next year, is a cozy farming sim with a morbid edge: It's about all the friends (and romantic partners) you make along the bloody way to stopping a serial killer. A little bit into the short demo of Grave Seasons, I took to the fields to clean up the run-down farm I'd broken into and decided to adopt, only to find a severed hand. It's fitting for an indie title published by Blumhouse Games, a division of Blumhouse Productions, which, with the gaming unit, began expanding beyond its work in horror films to publish titles like last year's Fear the Spotlight. Grave Seasons is a cozy horror game that seems like it will deftly mix the serene and gruesome, appealing to fans of Dredge and other calming games tinged with the sinister. Players take on the role of a prison escapee who breaks into, and adopts, a farm in the town of Ashenridge, only to find that it's riddled with dark secrets. But it wasn't just occult labs in the basement and body parts unearthed from the fields that made the game feel delightfully grim. After I'd made some early friends, my demo ended with a shocking twist: One of my new pals, who asked me to join them for a midnight walk in the nearby woods, got ambushed by a hideous monster and brutally murdered. Even the game's charming sprite graphics didn't spare my eyes from the ick of dismemberment. "We are huge fans of games that blend that sort of coziness mixed with a sense of unease," said Emmett Nahil, narrative designer at studio Perfect Garbage, which developed Grave Seasons (Blumhouse is the publisher). Nahil cited games like Dredge, Into The Woods and Cult of the Lamb as inspirations. In Grave Seasons, these murders happen seasonally, said lead programmer Nicky Armstrong. But you have enough time between sowing crops and cleaning up your farm to figure out what might be happening. You can try to befriend the many people you meet around town, and even discover who the killer is. But if you're playing Grave Seasons alongside real-life friends, don't worry about them spoiling the killer's identity for you -- the game's inspired design randomly assigns the murderer from a subset of the approximately 40 characters you encounter in the game. Like any good cozy farming game, you can romance many of them, including the hunky Hari that I met first in the demo. And in an even better twist, the person you're romancing might end up being the killer, too. Perfect Garbage Games Beyond video games, Nahil cited folk horror and monster films as inspirations that led to Grave Seasons' unique tone. "The original Wicker Man is actually a huge inspiration for me," Nahil said. "We have some really cool events [in Grave Seasons] that tell you a bit more about the lore of the world. Obviously, creature features like early Hammer Horror are a huge one for me, where you get to see different monsters, different creatures, and there's a sort of sense of pathos that goes along with those creatures." Another design quirk that sets Grave Seasons apart is starting the game with a protagonist on the lam from prison -- a departure from Stardew Valley and other farming sims where it's good vibes from the get-go. Instead, in this game players start with a sense of tension, since they can't go to the cops about the serial killer prowling around town. "It helps place the player in the idea that they are on their own and have to use their wits, and really focus on their skills to help the town and themselves -- or hinder the town and help the killer," Nahil said. Perfect Garbage Games In other words, a playthrough of Grave Seasons can go several different ways depending on the randomized killer and the choices players make. That was a design choice for Perfect Garbage, which wanted to divert from the indefinite playtime of Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon games in order to tell a story. "We really want you to experience the narrative that we've crafted and play the game to its conclusion ... whether that is a positive or a negative conclusion," Armstrong said. "We still want you to experience it to its end and have a really good time with one playthrough of the game, and then we'd love for you to play it again and experience a different story, a different killer, a different outcome." That storytelling applies to the killers, too. Whether romanceable or not, all characters have a backstory to discover as you befriend and get closer to them. The potential murderers have motivations and storylines that the player can dig into, which will change elements within the world that they might discover and ask around about. Perfect Garbage Games But in closing, I asked Armstrong and Nahil perhaps the most important question: Which of the game's 40 or so characters would they date? "Oh, my boy Hari is right there in the demo, yeah," said Armstrong. "He's not in the demo, but Noah, honestly," Nahil said. "Our buff fisherman is my romance of choice." That's amusing to know, but it also shows that the game contains multitudes. Many other farming sims have the cozy part down, but Grave Seasons seems like it'll let the discomfort of morbid effects and murder be a counterweight tension that complexifies the comforting monotony of farming. Amid alternating between growing life and fearing for your own, why wouldn't you find someone to date? Grave Seasons is scheduled to come out on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch in 2026.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Blumhouse Games Unveils Sizzle Reel At CCXP Festival For Upcoming Slate
Following the strong reception to their debut game Fear the Spotlight, Blumhouse games unveiled the sizzle reel for its upcoming slate of games at the CCXP Festival in Mexico City. Blumhouse games will soon unveil release windows for the three distinct and terrifying experiences: Crisol, a first-person action-adventure set in a twisted vision of Spain; Sleep Awake, a psychedelic descent into the space between sleep and death and Grave Seasons, a game that combines family, fishing – and hunting a serial killer. More from Deadline 'Fear the Spotlight' Team Cozy Game Pals On Creating "Fun Horror" For Everyone Blumhouse Games Conjures Upcoming Indie Horror Games Slate At Summer Game Fest Blumhouse Games Brings In Louise Blain In First Creative-Side Hire Since Launch The company's debut game was the Cozy Game Pals' atmospheric horror adventure Fear the Spotlight. The game serves as a twisted and loving homage to classic 90s teen horror stories, as it centers around two young women named Vivian and Amy as they sneak into a school after hours to solve a disturbing mystery behind a school tragedy that occurred decades before. The reel was one of several items that were unveiled on the festival Sunday including a new trailer and poster for the upcoming sequel to The Black Phone. Blumhouse Founder and CEO Jason Blum took the stage in Mexico City to mark the company's 15th anniversary and unveil a slate of updates, exclusive footage and surprise reveals. James Wan, Atomic Monster CEO + Founder, was also in attendance. Watch the sizzle reel below. Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More
The Guardian
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Maximum points: what is the most influential video game ever?
Ahead of the 21st Bafta games awards this April, the institution is running a public survey asking people to nominate the most influential video game of all time. As the survey points out, this is an open-ended question: early, groundbreaking titles such as Space Invaders and Pong regularly crop up as answers because they helped write the rules of the form, but on a personal level, the right game at the right time can be exceptionally influential, too. For players, it's often the games that made us feel differently about what games could do that feel the most influential. For a game designer, a film director, a writer or a musician, one particular game might inspire a whole creative era. Inspired by Bafta's survey, we asked people from across games and culture for their most influential game – and not one name cropped up twice. Mike Bithell, game designer and head of Bithell Games Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001) hit me at the perfect moment. I was trying to power through my GCSEs, and here came this perfect thing that pointed to a future of games that took me seriously as a player. (I nearly failed my last maths test after staying up for those final few cutscenes.) It engaged with sci-fi tropes and stylish storytelling in a way that felt generations ahead of its peers. Shenmue was the game that convinced me I wanted to make games, but MGS2 showed me the kind of games I wanted to make. One day I'll get there. Louise Blain, creative lead at Blumhouse Games Helpfully, the constantly evolving nature of the horror genre means that a new game can arrive and instantly unlock a fresh fear. Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's shortform horror game PT (2014) holds a special place in my heart, and it's all the more bittersweet for the fact that it is now unavailable and its full-length successor, Silent Hills, never saw the light of (foggy) day. Taking the lead from Amnesia: The Dark Descent's oppressive first person experience, the simplicity of PT's looping corridor is its masterstroke. All you really need to do is push forward and peer into its darkest corners, making this a frankly agonising haunted house taken entirely at your own pace. The game has spawned an infinite number of spiritual successors in atmospheric horror over the last decade, but even the recent trend for anomaly horror has a distinct PT flavour, as we enter the same spaces over and over again, on edge for the frightening differences. Keza MacDonald, Guardian video games editor As Grand Theft Auto's Dan Houser once said: 'Anyone who makes 3D games who says they've not borrowed something from Mario or Zelda is lying.' The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) set an example for explorable 3D game worlds that is still followed today – everything, from Link's movement to the sword combat to the little fairy who acts as a guide to what was then a new way of controlling games, was designed from scratch and with little precedent. But it's the mood of this game that I think was especially influential, not just on me but a generation of children who played it. Ocarina of Time is exciting, but also scary and a little sad. With its child hero, who hurtles forward in time against his will, it depicts a loss of innocence; it trusted young players to overcome their nervousness and get to grips not just with a new type of video game, but with all the threatening creatures, malevolent forces and hidden secrets that might be out there in its world. I think it's the first video game I played that felt like it wasn't just for fun. Ellie Gibson, comedian The obvious and only correct answer is Tomb Raider (1996). It introduced the idea that a female video game character could be the star, rather than sidekick or hostage. It was the first game I played that wasn't just about collecting shiny things or killing baddies (and it's a great shame the series lost its way down these rabbit holes in later years). It was about adventure, exploration and clever puzzles that made you feel like a genius when you finally solved them. Tomb Raider went on to inspire a raft of successful action adventure titles, such as the Uncharted games, and its influence is still present in the Assassin's Creed series. It's a shame this influence didn't extend to inspiring a raft of strong female characters, but patriarchy gonna patriarchy, innit. On a personal note, Lara Croft was such a huge influence on me personally that in 2002 I visited Angkor Wat wearing a tight vest and attempted to climb up a temple via some overhanging vines. I got shouted at by a security guard and ran away. Nina Freeman, game designer The most influential game for me must be QWOP (2008), by Bennett Foddy. It sort of brings me back to my roots when I play it. I've always been drawn to small, experimental games, and QWOP is a timeless example of that. At one of the first game jams I ever did, my friends and I made how do you Do It?, which was heavily inspired by the physical humour of QWOP. Bennett, whom I hadn't yet met, was a judge at the jam! We showed him the game, chatted a bunch, and kept in touch after that. Bennett ended up becoming one of my biggest mentors at this early stage of my career, so his work in general has had a big impact on me. Brenda Romero, game designer Look, I admit a bias here, but even if I were not married to John [Romero], my answer would still be the same: Doom (1993). I actually tried to think of something else, but nothing compared to its impact. Doom defined the first person shooter and set the stage for what is gaming's most popular genre. At the same time, it introduced deathmatch and online multiplayer to a wide audience. All FPS games truly owe their DNA to Doom. Doom was created to be moddable, and that decision is part of the reason why the community is still active almost 32 years later. I don't know of a single game developer who was not taken aback when Doom hit. It was mind blowing and a cultural shift for both games and game culture. At the time, consoles really dominated, and Doom sold the PC hard. From a design perspective, Doom introduced the abstract level design philosophy, the style for which John Romero is still known. As a designer, the non-linear and non-standard level design was a big break from the way things were done at the time. I have heard others say that everything about those early levels was a masterclass in game design. Not a week goes by where a well-known game developer doesn't credit Doom for inspiring them and starting their career. And it's still going, now playable on everything from pianos to ATMs and pregnancy tests. Iain Cook, musician, producer and composer I had mostly kicked my video game addiction for the only period in my life between 1997 and 1999, but fell off the wagon hard when the PlayStation 2 was released. The next-gen allure of Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2 and Gran Turismo 3 convinced me that I was missing out on something revolutionary. But in 2001 I was suddenly in the recording studio and on tour in Europe and America with my first proper band, Aereogramme, and there was a lot of downtime to fill. Eight-hour driving days in the back of a smokey van; endless post-soundcheck afternoons, waiting anxiously to go on stage. Not that I didn't succumb to other vices, but video games made the hours melt away. Advance Wars was a huge hit with me and my bandmates; the pass-and-play turn-based strategy really worked to engage the brain in between service station piss stops and weed-induced naps. But it was Mario Kart (1992-present) that really got the heart pounding. In time trials on 2001's Super Circuit I would spend an hour or more trying to shave a tenth of a second off the previous best three laps laid down by the fastest racer in the band. Once we'd dialled in on a new course, identified the shortcuts and mapped out the best racing line, you had to stitch all of those things perfectly together in a single run. Mess up and there's no point in continuing. Restart. Deep breath. Palms sweating. You needed total focus as well as muscle memory. The mounting anxiety explodes in expletive-filled euphoria when you cross the line. This game has brought me together with some amazing people. I'm now part of a WhatsApp group where my friends and I compete with other bands and video game industry people, setting a new course every couple of weeks, posting screenshots to validate authenticity. I know for sure that when Mario Kart 9 drops, my productivity is going to drop sharply again. Sam Barlow, game designer and founder of Half Mermaid Super Mario Bros (1985). What more to say? You move a character – he looks like a human, and a characterful human. There is a world: the one in the background, evocative landscapes and skies; and the one in the foreground that you run and jump over. The imagery! Natural landscapes mashed up with Alice in Wonderland. The physics and the controls allow expression – you can go fast, slow, cautious, bold … it's the way in which we exist as a primal level as a biped that walks through the world, condensed down into a game. Challenge, exploration, expression. We go left to right, and there are levels and goals and bosses … and secrets! This game laid down the structures and the ideas that we've been using ever since – but also showed that masterful execution is the heart of a video game. Shuhei Yoshida, former head of PlayStation Studios My most influential game of all time is Journey (2012). Journey moved players deeply; they had tears in their eyes at the end. It was proof that a game, like movies and novels, could affect people emotionally. This game, which was developed by a small team of 18 people and could be played in three to four hours, swept most of the industry's highest game of the year honours, competing against AAA blockbuster titles. I believe it was the first time that had happened in the industry. Meghna Jayanth, writer and narrative designer The Princess Maker series (1991-2007). You are tasked with raising a fairy princess disguised as an ordinary human girl, managing her time between learning important skills, pursuing her interests, adventuring and dating. This early social simulation game is surprisingly crunchy and punishing; it's extremely possible for your 'daughter' to die or be exiled during the various social and political trials that mark her coming-of-age. Each instalment varies, but it's not uncommon to have 50+ endings as well as branching dialogue and narrative events conditional on your princess's particular stats and attributes. As a narrative designer this game was a revelation, and apart from in my own work, I think you can see its influence in everything from the wildly successful Persona games to last year's intriguing indie meditation on capitalism Final Profit to any of Hanako Games' niche but satisfying offerings. In fact, I see a genre through-line all the way to the ambitious and genuinely brilliant design of indie game Closer the Distance, one of this year's Independent games festival narrative nominees. Oh, and it was unashamedly marketed to and interested in girls. I wish more publishers and executives would pay attention. This is a game that I wish was even more influential. Keith Stuart, Guardian video game correspondent In the early 1980s, most of the games I played were extremely abstract: you were a space ship fighting aliens, or you were a hungry yellow circle being chased by ghosts. But in 1985 Atari released Paperboy, a game in which you were a boy delivering papers. Not only was this arcade classic revolutionary in that it featured a real-life job, it also presented a world that was absolutely full of detail and experimentation, in which players were actively rewarded for messing about. What if you threw a paper at a window or a passerby? You got feedback. You got feedback whatever you did. As a schoolboy with an actual paper round it felt weirdly therapeutic to do the job badly, but in game design terms it also taught a generation of designers that the everyday world is an exciting, amusing and challenging place to set a video game. It was also a game that let you mess about, it rewarded mischief. It was GTA a dozen years early.
