Week 5 - Forefront Friday: Visage

Visage (TBA) is an upcoming independent survival horror game and looks to be a spiritual successor to Hideo Kojima's P.T. (2014). It is a noteworthy example of a high quality game funded entirely through Kickstarter. I cite this as an example of the forefront because it is pushing the genre of atmospheric horror to new heights. It accomplishes this mainly through its visual juxtaposition of an idyllic urban household mixed with otherworldly imagery and horror. The games sound design is entirely atmospheric and it is setup in a way that it gives hints and clues to alert the players about the dangers lurking in the house.

Gameplay trailer for Visage.

I find this to be a particularly exciting game because the developers are intending every play through to be a unique experience. The events in Visage will be randomly activated throughout each play session, with the player’s choices resulting in different endings. Visage will also be supporting virtual reality and looks to be a terrifying front runner in advancing psychological horror in video games.

The game is being made in Unreal Engine 4 and as such I will be interested to see how far the team at SadSquare Studio are able to take the game's psychedelic visuals. Originally I wanted to employ similar visual tricks in my major project environment but because I am less focused on gameplay at the moment, I will most likely not incorporate them at this stage. However for my final trailer I would like to experiment with some of the effects they have used as I feel this trailer sets a very ominous tone and I would like to replicate this in my promotional video.

7780'S STUDIO. (2014) P.T.. [DOWNLOAD] PlayStation 4. Tokyo: Konami.

GAME TRAILERS (2017) Visage - Official Gameplay Trailer. [Online Video]. June 22nd. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1sOQcHYwE4. [Accessed: 22/06/2018].

SADSQUARE STUDIO. (TBA) Visage. [DISC, DOWNLOAD] Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One. SadSquare Studio.