The Studio Behind Until Dawn Is Making A Horror Series Called The Dark Pictures
/
Supermassive Games, the studio behind the sleeper PS4 hit Until Dawn, is creating a new horror series called The Dark Pictures, and it begins in 2019 with Man of Medan. Bandai Namco will be publishing these games on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC marking the first multiplatform for Supermassive.
The notion of an anthology series reminds me of the show Black Mirror, in which each episode is largely disconnected from one another, featuring characters and stories that are linked thematically rather than overtly.
Supermassive Games will be implementing a similar branching path style to The Dark Pictures. So like Until Dawn, some choices might save a character's life or spell his or her doom, fundamentally changing how the game's story ends.
Previously, Supermassive Games developed games exclusively for the PlayStation platform. The Guildford-based studio started out developing DLC for LittleBigPlanet. Their success with Until Dawn got them hand-picked by Sony to do a number of bespoke projects like Bravo Team and The Inpatient on PSVR, and developed Hidden Agenda as a showcase for Sony's PlayLink initiative.
It's exciting to see the studio continue working on the kind of narrative-based horror that made them famous, while reaching out to a broader audience across multiple platforms. Neither Supermassive nor Bandai Namco disclosed how many games are planned for The Dark Pictures.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan is set to arrive on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2019.
I had the chance to play a preview build of The Casting of Frank Stone, an interactive horror game developed by Supermassive Games. Set within the Dead by Daylight universe, the demo took around 45 minutes and left me with the impression that Behaviour Interactive has given Supermassive the freedom to do what they do best. The game echoes their previous work, both in gameplay and in how choices and events shape the overall story.