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horror

Devolver’s Steam sale is now on, so I’m using it as an excuse to tell you about its brilliant oddball horror adventure Look Outside

by admin September 19, 2025

Look Outside starts as it means to go on, hinting at a choice and then standing back smirking. The room’s dark; strange light leaks through closed curtains, and a beady eye poking through a crack in the wall urges you to peek out the window. You don’t have to do it; it’s not a formal decision point as such, just a gently presented possibility – and you can practically hear developer Francis Coulombe cackling as your curiosity wins out and all your innards explode through your eye holes.

Look Outside

Developer: Francis Coulombe
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platform: Played on PC
Availability: Out now on Steam

For reasons that may or may not eventually become clear, Look Outside’s world is in the grip of some cosmically peculiar meteorological phenomena, causing anyone that gazes upon its unnatural light to mutate in the most horrible of ways. Giant eyeballs bulge from gaping wounds as partygoers continue their endless reverie a few doors down from your apartment; teeth sprout through ruptured skin across the hallway, splitting heads into grotesque smiles; even the paintings have gone rogue a couple of floors below. But there’s hope: all this should pass in 15 days, you’re told, so if you can stay inside your apartment building – if you keep the curtains drawn, your fridge stocked, and your sanity in check – you might just make it through.

Despite its jovially cartoonish veneer, Look Outside is a wonderfully, surprisingly grim thing; a smothering, gooey miasma of seeping innards and gut-tightening existential dread that also happens to be a sly, silly, and relentlessly oddball adventure, all the while walking an impressively assured tightrope between humour and horror. Tonally, it’s very much its own thing, but if I had to make comparisons, I’d say its combination of oozing retro dread and top-down, turn-based battling feels something like the lovechild of Jasper Byrne’s cult survival horror hit Lone Survivor and Toby Fox’s ode to old-school JRPGs, Undertale.

Look Outside trailer.Watch on YouTube

There’s definitely something of the classic survival horror feel to Look Outside, as you prowl the shadowy halls and gloomily lit residences of your apartment block while discordant throbs and hums fill out its ambient soundtrack. It’s there too as you fend off its parade of gleefully inventive abominations while hoovering up food, crafting materials, and makeshift weaponry – even if its turn-based battles lend a different sort of rhythm to proceedings. Sure, this might be a game where monsters disguise themselves as hats and you’ll encounter a crossword puzzle so boring it can completely drain you of resolve, but outside the safety of your apartment, things can be tense. Partly, that’s down to its unpredictably weird enemy encounters and the fact your weapons are prone to disintegration, but there’s also a canny XP progression system that rewards you for staying out and avoiding saving for as long as possible, push-your-luck-style.

Image credit: Eurogamer/Devolver Digital

But none of this, really, is what makes Look Outside so fascinating. Rather, it’s the game’s gleefully confounding spirit and relentless, wily narrative invention. As days pass, more of the apartment block opens up to be explored. As it does, more of its oddball residents enter your orbit, and things get brilliantly strange. It’s difficult to say too much without spoiling the fun, but this is a game crammed with imaginative scenarios and unexpected detours. At one point, for instance, you stumble into the domain of a resident apparently so enamoured with taxidermy they’ve decided to remodel their apartment out of themselves. The first floor of the building, meanwhile, has transcended the boundaries of time and space. Elsewhere, an artist’s having a hell of a week as his doppelgangers incessantly paint themselves into existence, and a nice woman upstairs is slowly inching her way along an ever-narrowing passageway, oblivious to the fact she’s started to leak out into the basement. And let’s not talk about the neighbours.

Look Outside’s horror might be softened by a tone that’s more menacing whimsy than outright nasty, but it’s surprising how often its sharp script manages a gut-punch swerve from daft to something genuinely troubling. Its absolutely favourite thing is to complicate a seemingly straightforward objective with a dash of moral ambiguity, then just leaving you to sweat your way to a deeply uncomfortable, often faintly harrowing conclusion. And, boy, does it love to twist the knife. These nine doppelgangers all think they’re alive, you say, and you want me to make friends with them so I can decide which eight to kill? I can sacrifice my shooting arm to get this hungry demon door open or I can feed it this adorable mutant rat baby?

Image credit: Eurogamer/Devolver Digital

There’s a lot of these kinds of decision points seamlessly threaded into the exploratory, turn-based action. Sometimes they’re obviously presented as choices, often they’re not; some prove beneficial, others comically, abruptly fatal. It makes Look Outside feel fascinatingly malleable, even as its mischievous unpredictability means you’re never entirely sure where your actions may take you. Perhaps your shoulder develops an ominous itch that chirps like a bird, or a shadowy creature with a porcelain grin takes a slightly unnerving shine to you – and you’ll wonder how, and why, and whatever next? And that’s without considering exactly why Look Outside might be tracking a strange swirl of slightly opaque stats as you brush your teeth, play video games, and pass time with pals in your apartment.

Even with its slightly one-note combat system, which tends toward serviceable rather than genuinely exhilarating, Look Outside was a real surprise when I played it earlier this year – a brilliantly unpredictable, wildly inventive, and surprisingly chilling little thing (also, it’s got a great synth-horror soundtrack). It’s currently discounted by a whole £1.80 in the Devolver Steam Sale, and it comes highly recommended. And if you fancy something thematically similar but substantially more harrowing, then hey, do I have the game for you.

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September 19, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Brilliant retro horror throwback Crow Country has landed on PlayStation Plus, and it’s well worth your time

by admin September 19, 2025

Even without the cloying darkness and lumbering monsters, you get the impression Crow Country would be a pretty awful day out, what with its cramped thoroughfares and tatty décor, its frazzled animatronics and the kind of browning water features you can practically smell through the screen. It’s certainly no Disneyland that’s for sure, but there’s no arguing this delightfully grim Atlanta theme park is a perfect horror setting.

Crow Country

The year is 1990, and you – Agent Mara Forest – are a young (conspicuously young, in fact) law enforcement officer sent to the titular tourist attraction to investigate the disappearance of its owner, one Edward Crow. Not that any of this pre-amble especially matters; the star here is that grotty setting, which makes this survival horror throwback feel refreshingly distinct, even as it leans firmly into nostalgia.

The most obvious affectation here comes with those deliciously chunky visuals; all awkwardly bulbous polygons and low-res filters intended to capture the spirit of yesteryear rather than replicate it fastidiously. It works, though, giving the whole thing the vibe of a long-lost survival horror classic, tumbled straight out of a wormhole for brand-new eyes. And vibes, really, is what Crow Country is all about. This certainly isn’t a scary game, but it still manages to elicit some deliciously spooky tension all the same, as its pudgy meat-creatures shamble awkwardly around corners and spindly legged oddities lurch menacingly into view.

Crow Country trailer.Watch on YouTube

Structurally, too, Crow Country borrows heavily from the earliest iterations of Resident Evil and its ilk. This is a world of locked doors and improbably elaborate security mechanisms, of save rooms and liberally scattered notes, where progress is one of puzzle-solving, backtracking, and the occasional jolts of combat. Combat, frankly, I don’t love; rather than modern-day run-and-gunning, it’s got the staccato rhythm of old, where unholstering your weapons roots you to the spot as you aim wildly and awkwardly in search of a headshot. And if an enemy gets too close, you’re forced to holster up, leg it somewhere out of reach, and try again.

It’s fussy in a way that’s just a bit too retro for my tastes (and I say this as someone who’s been playing games since 1983), but in most other aspects, thanks to its smartly selective design, Crow Country manages to tip a hat to a bygone era without tilting into frustration. The control scheme is mercifully modern away from combat – good riddance tank controls – clues are recorded and easily referenced in safe rooms, and there’s none of that limited save nonsense, where you’re forced to agonise over your last typewriter ribbon, here. Even the likes of ammo and health restoratives are relatively abundant. And puzzles, too, seem pitched just right.

Image credit: Eurogamer/SFB Games

Puzzles, in fact, might just be my favourite bit of Crow Country so far. Sure, its sense of cheerily macabre menace is a hoot, but developer SFB Games (of Snipperclips fame) has crafted a series of delightful conundrums – compass-point tomb stone swivelling, date-matching clock cranking, and hidden code piano tinkling – that manage to feel inventive despite invoking familiar forms. Better yet, they’re involved enough to feel satisfying without resorting to head-spinning abstraction. Yes, I still have battle scars from Silent Hill 3’s Hard puzzle mode.

Granted, I’m only a couple of hours in at this point, but Eurogamer contributor Vikki Blake liked Crow Country a lot when she reviewed it on PC last year, so it feels like we’re on pretty solid ground here. And of course, now that Crow Country has made its way to PlayStation Plus, it’s the perfect opportunity for even remotely curious subscribers to give it some time.

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September 19, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Quirky horror with a timely story hidden beneath? Indie gem No, I’m not a Human might be one of my favourite games this year

by admin September 17, 2025

Going into No, I’m not a Human, I think I was expecting a quirky horror curio about identifying monsters in people-suits, which it sort of is – for a while. But slowly, it slips on a new face, and by the time things wrapped up several hours later in a smog of suffocating hopelessness and a smear of blood and bone, I was genuinely a little shellshocked by it all.

No, I’m not a Human

Developer: Trioskaz
Publisher: Critical Reflex
Platform: Played on PC
Availability: Out now on Steam

It’s clear from No, I’m not a Human’s strikingly assured opening moments that developer Trioskaz is completely in control of its vision. A lilting guitar strums over a photo montage of sunsets, swing sets, sleeping cats, and placid bays, while a muffled voice on the phone talks a little sadly about coming home. It’s an understated, unexpectedly melancholy start, but quickly its mood shifts again.

It’s night. You, whoever you are, stand in a sparsely decorated hallway, walls papered in disorientating swirls of lurid green. An upbeat melody plays insistently on the soundtrack, waning and warping in a way that immediately unnerves. Suddenly, a knock at the door; you peer through a peephole and a sullen face stares back – a concerned neighbour with news of a deadly heatwave, dangerous Visitors with human faces infiltrating homes, and a firm warning to stay indoors. (It’s a little weird my two favourite horror games this year, the other being Look Outside, involve people being trapped inside a building as meteorological calamity rages without, but that’s probably a story for another day). Then, bedtime.

Get used to this corridor – you’ll be seeing it a lot. | Image credit: Eurogamer/Trioskaz

Squint and there is, perhaps, a touch of PT here. As in Hideo Kojima’s oft-mimicked horror teaser, No, I’m not Human’s L-shaped hallway is your entire world. Sure, it has a couple of spartan rooms you can peer into either side, but for its duration this grim corridor – the game’s sole explorable 3D space – is pretty much everything you know. But unlike PT, which finds a kind of forward momentum in its endless loop, here you remain stuck – literally and thematically – in this stagnant hole. Even your limited means of interacting with the outside world – glimpses through peepholes and sealed windows, through TV broadcasts and muffled telephone calls – only serve to intensify No, I’m not Human’s sense of claustrophobic incarceration.

They come at night. | Image credit: Eurogamer/Trioskaz

With the scene set, things soon settle into a distinct rhythm – a cycle of repetition that’s suffocating in its own way. You sleep by day, as the burning sun turns the world to ash, then wake at dusk, always to another knock-knock-knock at the door. Each night as the world cools, a ghoulish parade of loners and losers – drunks, wasters, conspiracy theorists, religious nuts – appears on your doorstep, each requesting sanctuary. And it’s for you to decide whether to welcome them in or send them on their way. Any of them might be a Visitor – othered creatures with human faces and unclear intentions – but companionship, you’re warned, is critical for your survival. A nightmarish end supposedly awaits if you’re visited by the Pale One when all alone.

Quickly, a problem arises; undetected Visitors will pick off your guests one-by-one in the dead of night if you inadvertently invite one into your home. And other complications force your hand in different ways, as events unfold. But the effect is the same: your days are spent in mounting paranoia, roaming your house and interrogating guests using information gleaned from TV broadcasts and scrambled radio signals – all in a bid to identify Visitors and eject them from your home, with brutal, ugly violence or otherwise. It’s a sort of highwire juggling act, where you’re attempting to manipulate events using extremely transient resources and limited tools, but the way you always seem to be playing catch-up with No, I’m not Human’s ever-evolving rules suggests Trioskaz is deliberately setting you up to fail.

Slowly, your house fills up with guests… and Visitors? | Image credit: Eurogamer/Trioskaz

No, I’m not Human might present itself as a sort of quirky deduction horror, but it feels equally haunted by the spirits of This War of Mine, Papers, Please, and Pathologic 2. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, its initial affectations slip away; the mood grows sombre and an overbearing sense of hopelessness settles in. As you spend more time with your oddball guests (assuming they survive each night) they’ll begin to open up, sharing humanising stories of their strange, sad lives. Each glimpse out the window paints an increasingly severe picture of the world beyond. Glib observations make way for genuine pathos as cities burn, ash-faced corpses hang from telephone poles, and children rot in the streets. By the time my playthrough ended with the protagonist pounding another man’s face to a liquefied pulp using his bare hands, it felt like we’d come a long, long way in a few short hours.

Curiously, though, No, I’m not Human isn’t exactly a one-and-done adventure, and is instead designed for repeated play. Guests are randomised, as are the symptoms you’ll need to identify Visitors each time, and there are hints of new narrative revelations to uncover, if only the incessantly shifting pieces would correctly align. Admittedly, my eventual ending – as vicious as it was – felt a little arbitrary, struggling to pull my playthrough’s unique story beats together in a narratively satisfying way. It’s hard to tell if this is an inherent design flaw based on a single playthrough, but even so, No, I’m not Human remains a fascinating thing.

Before long, you’ll be checking guests for telltale symptoms. | Image credit: Eurogamer/Trioskaz

It offers a slithering, deeply idiosyncratic slide into darkness, and a bleak vision of an uncomfortably close future (as masked government stooges begin moving from home to home disappearing ‘visitors’, it quietly invites obvious parallels). But for all its squalid discomfort and smothering despair, there’s an unmistakable sliver of light at its core: find connection and compassion when all hope seems lost, it suggests, and humanity might just endure. Not what I was expecting to be thinking about when I fired up this unassuming little horror game.

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September 17, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

I was terrified of answering the door before playing this freaky-faced apocalyptic horror, and honestly it hasn’t helped

by admin September 16, 2025

They took him! They took the butt ugly bloke who was squatting in the bathroom! The one who kept insisting that the sun’s burning heat was cleansing the Earth of sin and, totally unconnected from that I assume, was divorced. Those hazmat-suited fiends! I ought to give them a piece of my mind.

I bloody well will do, just as soon as I’ve worked out who’s turned two of my other guests into neatly arranged bin bags of dead parts. My suspicions are firmly lodged at the feet of the toothless and fish-faced nun who ended up the only one in that room left alive, and my trigger finger’s itchy.

These are thoughts that may end up going through your mind as you play No, I’m Not a Human, a paranoia-fuelled horror game that developers Trioskaz released into the world yesterday, September 15th. I’ve finally got around to firing up the trusty RPS press account today and giving its first hour or so a go. Thus far, it’s got me thouroughly freaked, when I’m not roaring with laughter at just how wacky some of its characters have purposefully been made to look.

If you want an idea of what I mean, check out the collage of images further down. In the meantime, to set the scene, here’s the synopsis offered by the game’s Steam page:

Sunrise. Twilight of Earth. The world is ending. Acrid auromas of sun-scorched streets fill the air. Blackened corpses gnarled into shapes of agony line streets. Peering outside is enough to scorch eyes from the socket. The only refuge is in the night. But the night belongs to the Visitors. A knock on the door. A solitary voice, begging for refuge. They look like us. Talk like us. Smell like us. Are they us? Look for the signs.

As you can tell, it’s very much sunshine and rainbows stuff. You’re a faceless person living alone, in a house with the sort of perfectly eerie atmos you can only achieve by having someone’s grandparents consult on your decor. The sun is doing a thing, so everyone’s been forced to become nocturnal and remain indoors. That’s where the Visitors come in. They’re Lovecraftian creatures said to emerged from underground, equipped with the ability to almost perfectly mirror being human and an insatiable desire to sit on your sofa.

Image credit: Critical Reflex

You probably shouldn’t do what I did: let everyone in regardless of how much they look like creepy deformed putty. That is, unless you want to wake up to a notification iniforming you that it smells like someone died last night. In an effort to try and stop that from happening, you’ve got to use up your limited energy during the day to check the guests you’ve let in for apparent signs of being a Visitor you hear via the TV or radio. Stuff like having perfectly white teeth, bloodshot eyes, or muck under their fingernails. As you can imagine, the game has fun with all of these would-be symptoms of visitordom being things any regular person might have.

So far, I’ve managed to successfully identify and blow the head off of one Visitor, as well as ruthlessly execute a couple of people who must, in hindsight, have just been regular weirdos. There’s a wonderfully foreboding anticipation to waking up each night and hearing the knock that signals the start of a parade of new guests to consider letting in, though it might be better if their arrivals were a bit more spaced out, rather than one person rocking up the moment another leaves. The sense of isolation as the game gradually feeds you scraps of info from the outside world is quite absorbing too.

I also wish No, I’m Not a Human would let me save more freely. You can do so by downing bottles of khombucha, but you only get one to start off with, meaning that if you drink that early, you can easily lose a bunch of progress. I need that progress, Trioskaz. I need to see if the hazmat fiends will return my unsightly loo-dwelling sun-worshipper.

No, I’m Not a Human is out now on Steam, priced at discounted £11.51/$13.49/€13.31 until September 29th.

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

How AREA15 Is Evolving Immersive Entertainment With Universal Horror Unleashed and More

by admin September 13, 2025

Las Vegas immersive entertainment hub AREA15 is turning five in a big way, celebrating the arrival of its second phase of development on September 17. Zone 2’s main attraction, Universal Horror Unleashed, opened its doors over the summer to attract seasonal tourists, but the rest of the offerings are following suit as the year draws out.

After io9’s invited visit to Universal Horror Unleashed, io9 chatted with Mark Stutzman, AREA15’s chief technology officer, about the new way to experience Vegas through futuristic visions of participatory entertainment. And it all really started with rave culture.

“The original idea was, ‘Let’s use it for festival grounds.’” Stutzman shared, “We decided it was too hot, and we put up a warehouse, and we said, ‘Let’s do festivals in the warehouse.’ And then we said, ‘Well, shoot, why don’t we kind of start creating this immersive destination?’ And that’s where it all started, and Zone One has just been insanely successful for us.”

Meow Wolf, the raconteur of interactive art portals that have sprung up across the country, was only the beginning as Zone One’s first anchor.

“Everyone who’s coming to AREA15 is coming [for] immersive experiences, right? Like, that’s their whole goal. And so obviously on the Zone One side, Meow Wolf is our anchor tenant and they’ve done a great job of continuing to drive traffic,” he said.

Zone One features a buffet of AR and VR games and visual walkthroughs among its neon-powered music, dining, and shopping selections. Stutzman continued, “We have 80 acres here to develop, and Universal is our anchor tenant in Zone Two out of a five-phase project. The entire district will be immersive experiences—it’ll be sports and entertainment; it’ll be great restaurants and all that good stuff. The thing that we’ve been leading into most recently is these kinds of IP-based immersive experiences because you get kind of the brand recognition—the emotional connection—and then we bring not only the experience of building immersive experiences that are engaging.”

Area15 is carving its own tech-forward frontier that’s more attractive to Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z than big E-ticket-esque major IP hubs. Universal Horror Unleashed, like Meow Wolf, leans into AREA15’s fun parallel dimension to the Strip’s casino nostalgia. Meow Wolf’s premise is that it’s a portal to other realms beyond its sci-fi-tinged grocery storefront; you have to look beyond for ways to break through and discover its genre-mashing labyrinths of cosmic and fantasy adventure.

Similarly, Universal’s desert warehouse of horrors acts like a storage facility of the studio’s lore that, because it was placed on AREA15’s dimensional rift-inspired land, brings the monsters to life in their wheelhouse of terrors. Stutzman elaborated, “We built a lot of these experiences and we leaned heavily into AR and VR and all this other cool tech but it’s really tech that should be the enabler. What should be most forward are the performances and the experience and the story and the emotional connectivity to the content, which is why we’re leaning more into the IP now. It just really works well and Universal is a testament to that. I mean, [it owns] some of the strongest IP in horror.”

The alternate universe thread is more for those who seek it out with Easter eggs in zone one that speak to it but the retailers within aren’t necessarily going to crossover with each other; it’s just a delightful nugget of lore that brings a sort of otherworldly, futuristic, multi-dimensional edge to the space.

“We’ll have similar in Three and Four and Five, but we’ll have other cool stuff that we launched, like The John Wick Experience, which is a partnership with Lionsgate, another incredibly strong IP owner. John Wick has been insanely successful, kind of beyond our models,” he said of the Continental Las Vegas. You can’t stay there because, well, things get hairy as soon as you try to check in—since you arrive at the same time as John during one of his tiffs against the high table.

“We love kind of doing over the top and Zone Two is going to be crazy with all the different experiences,” Stutzman said of the ongoing development. It will include an interdimensional creature carousel, a drop ride, and a hollowed-out plane with its own fake universe airline concept. But a big thing for the CTO is that at the heart of the tech there are still artists at work.

“Art has obviously always been a big part of who we are so we really wanted to tie into it and we’ll we’ll actually have art tours. And we don’t want to lean into it in a cheesy way. We want to lean into it in a serious way because it’s quite an impressive collection.”

He also noted that AREA15 seeks to cultivate Las Vegas’ art scene through community art events in addition to festival installations surrounding the outdoor plane areas. “We’ll have lots of musicians under there just entertaining and then we’re also going to throw raves but it’s really going to be an amazing space.”

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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September 13, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Horror Icon Lin Shaye Is Returning to ‘Insidious’

by admin September 13, 2025

Insidious franchise star Lin Shaye’s dearly departed medium character will make another return to star in Blumhouse’s sixth film in the series.

The horror legend’s tenure as psychic Elise Rainier has been a beloved part of the Insidious movies and filmmaker Jacob Chase has officially enlisted her return, as reported by Deadline. The actress is joined by Amelia Eve (star of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor) in the upcoming installment, written by Chase and David Leslie Johnson. It goes into production next week.

Shaye most recently played Rainier in Insidious: The Red Door, directed by series star Patrick Wilson, where she guided the Lambert family to a resolution in dealing with their past family trauma in relation to the original film’s events. Rose Byrne and Ty Simpkins also reprised their roles to help wrap up the Lambert chapter of the series.

The plot of the upcoming film remains unknown, but Red Door did hint that Elise would be returning in some capacity to fight the good fight against the demons of the Further. Eve may be playing whoever the ghosts and entities decide to pick on next but we’ll have to wait to find out.

We hope that Rainer gets an assist from Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) from the original cast as her living paranormal investigation counterparts. We’ve been wanting to see that partnership become a part of more ongoing investigations.

The as-yet untitled Insidious film is set for release on August 21, 2026.

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September 13, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly is getting a PC remake, bringing its horror photography to Steam

by admin September 12, 2025

Smile and say AIEEEEE, horror fans! Tecmo and Team Ninja are bringing a “remake” of PS2 survival horror Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly to PC via Steam in early 2026. Why am I brandishing a glyph-covered Canon EOS 90D at you, while singing the Ghostbusters theme? Allow me to explain: Fatal Frame’s signature touch is that you defeat spooks using a magic camera. Naturally, this also means that you have to look steadily and calmly at said spooks while they shimmer and sway towards you. Catch some of that nonsense in the remake’s announcement trailer.

Watch on YouTube

I’ve only ever played one Fatal Frame game, 2005’s Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, in which you alternate between a relatively safe daytime apartment and a dream manor where the monsters are. I’m told that Crimson Butterfly is the best of the lot. It’s the story of twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura, who visit a stream one day to reminisce about their childhoods before the area is submerged by the construction of a dam.

Alas and alack, Mayu spots a nice red butterfly that lures her away to a “village of never-ending night”, home to a “forbidden ritual”. I had a similar thing happen to me while hiking along the Dales Way, once. The butterfly was a deceptively cheap Airbnb listing, the village was Kendal, and the forbidden ritual was all-night karaoke at the Olde Fleece Inn.

According to the Steam page, the Crimson Butterfly remake will be a “complete overhaul”, with “richer and more engaging gameplay in both exploration and combat”. In particular, you can expect a “Holding Hands with Mayu” mechanic that, presumably, lets you hold hands with Mayu. I really hope there’s more to this so-called remake’s “richer and more engaging gameplay” than simply letting major characters hold hands, Tecmo.

I enjoy the nerdiness of Fatal Frame’s photography mechanics. The camera can be upgraded with different lenses and types of film, and it’s not impossible that you might learn something about shot composition while you’re flashbulbing poltergeists. Given nerves of steel, you might find yourself demanding that the ghost go out and come in again, because dang it, this one could be worthy of the New Yorker. The ghost will not listen to you, of course, but don’t let that stop you yelling at your TV screen.

Two previous Fatal Frame games have made the leap to PC – Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse and Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. Our Mask of the Lunar Eclipse reviewer Kim Armstrong was not keen, commenting of the PC port, “while this unique combat may have carried the game’s lifeless story back in 2008, this rerelease is nothing more than an expensive reskin of a relic.”

We didn’t review Maiden of Black Water, possibly because it was so terrifying that Graham (RPS in peace) refused to assign it and instead threw it into a lake one dark and stormy evening. Or possibly because it was so boring that Graham (RPS in peace) refused to assign it and instead threw it into a lake one dark and stormy evening. He’s gone now, so it’s impossible to say for sure.

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September 12, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Rocky Horror Picture Show Celebrates 50 Years With A Steelbook Blu-ray Release

by admin September 12, 2025

The iconic Rocky Horror Picture Show is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with an all-new The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Collectible Steelbook Edition 4K Blu-ray. This new edition marks the first time the cult-classic musical horror-comedy film has been released in 4K. Along with a collectible steel case featuring new cover art, the two-disc set also features a long list of bonus materials, including several new cuts of the movie in 4K. The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Steelbook 4K Blu-ray launches October 7, and preorders are available for $40 at Amazon.

$40 | Releases October 7

This two-disc 50th anniversary edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show includes the movie in 4K for the first time, with support for Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround sound and Dolby Vision HDR. It also comes with standard Blu-ray and digital copies of the film. You’ll also get bonus features spread across both 4K Blu-ray and traditional Blu-ray discs, including a karaoke-style sing-along cut, an audio commentary featuring screenwriter and actor Richard O’Brien and actress Patricia Quinn, deleted scenes, and more. You can check out the complete list of special features below.

Preordering at Walmart and Amazon means you won’t be charged until the steelbook ships, and you’ll be eligible for any price drops between now and when the steelbook 4K Blu-ray launches on October 7.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Steelbook

The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Collectible Steelbbook Edition 4K Blu-ray Bonus Features

Along with the film and collectible steelbook case, the new 50th Anniversary Edition 4K Blu-ray release includes a long list of bonus materials. While much of the content–such as deleted scenes and alternate takes–is pulled from previous Blu-ray and DVD releases (which are currently out of print), this new version will also include several new commentary and sing-along tracks that are watchable with the new 4K remaster. Here’s the full list of all the special features:

Rocky-oke: Sing Along Version (4K)
50 Years and Still Kicking Trivia Audio Track (4K)
Vintage Callback Audio Track (4K)
Commentary track featuring Richard O’Brien and Patricia Quinn (4K)
Song Selection menu (4K)
Alternate black and white opening
Deleted song
Alternate scene takes
Rocky Horror double feature video show
Music video for Time Warp
A featurette on the Beacon Theater

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a film adaptation of Richard O’Brien’s 1973 stage musical. It follows a newly engaged couple, Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon), whose car breaks down in the remote countryside. The pair end up at a strange party held at a castle owned by the mysterious Dr. Frank-N-Furter–played by Tim Curry in his debut on-screen role. It’s a wild movie that blends comedy, horror, and musical genres into a unique film, earning a cult following when it premiered in 1975 that persists to this day.

Plenty of other 4K Blu-rays are launching in the Fall months, including several new horror releases dropping in time for Halloween. These include some of the year’s biggest horror movies like 28 Years Later, which launches on Blu-ray on September 23 and has a steelbook edition 4K Blu-ray available to preorder for $48.49. Clown in a Cornfield is getting a steelbook release a week earlier on September 16, while other 2025 releases like Sinners and Bring Her Back are available now. You can also grab new steelbook 4K Blu-rays of older slashers like Halloween (2018), The Devil’s Rejects, or I Know What You Did Last Summer. Check the list below for even more steelbook edition horror Blu-rays.

More Horror 4K Blu-rays

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September 12, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

‘Terrifier’ Makes an Undeniable Mark on Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood

by admin September 9, 2025

The gates of Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood have opened, and this year’s event has some of the theme park’s biggest debuts. Between Terrifier and Five Nights at Freddy’s, the headliner haunted houses really pack a punch, with the terror titan-led Jason Universe house, based on the Friday the 13th franchise, also helping to power a killer season start.

But that’s not to say there were some lows; surprisingly, HHN’s anticipated Fallout offering fell short of expectations. Some repeat houses managed to hold enough excitement, but the West Coast event—which is smaller than the version mounted by Halloween Horror Nights Orlando—might prove to create uneven experiences for park guests who can’t shell out the extra dough for express passes.

Express tickets were provided by Universal for media to be able to review all the houses, and that’s a key takeaway from the start: as theme park insiders, it was clear to us that it might be near impossible to visit all the houses if you do general event admission. If you’re locked in to that price point, always be sure to prioritize 3-4 houses and one entertainment offering—between the Blumhouse-themed Terror Tram, the stunt show The Purge: Dangerous Waters, or the Chainsaw Man short film screening. If you really want to do everything in one night, upgrading to express may be your best bet.

I do have one pro tip from attending in past years: the express pass will sometimes be offered at 50% off near the end of the night and you can buy in to race through all the houses in the last few hours of the event. I’ve done it myself. You can only take advantage if you’re already in the park when the signs go up at the ticket upgrade stations, so keep an eye out for that.

As an LA local, I’ve also simply spread it out by buying a multi-night ticket (such as the “Frequent Fear” pass) and going once a week to hang out for vibes and scope out shorter lines for houses I’ve missed or want to do again.

Here’s what we thought of Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood for 2025:

The Good

Terrifier: Art the Clown has unofficially solidified his place as a Horror Nights icon. From the moment you arrive at the event, the roaming silent clown killer chillingly charms with his bag of demented tricks. Personally, and like most going to the event, this was my first exposure to the character and the world of Terrifier, having been deterred by some of the divisive discourse surrounding the gratuitous violence of the franchise. However, the Terrifier house cleared up some of my concerns and I think the films fall more into an absurdist gore vibe versus the gritty gore genre (think more Raimi than Roth).

There are more horrific things, I think, in the Monstruos house with a child being eaten by La Llorona than anything in the Terrifier house. Don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Art is still very hardcore but in a hilarious way. We very much enjoyed the Looney Tunes or rather Itchy & Scratchy aura on a very sick cartoony clown’s mission of demonic mayhem. The full display of depravity was such a rollicking good time I went home and watched Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2 immediately. Art the Clown will get new fans (myself included) and this house will please longtime fanatics. Get down to the Clown Cafe as soon as you can because this one will have a long queue. And the water splash warnings? They’re for real; bring a poncho.

Jason Universe: This is hands down the scariest house in a traditional sense. Jason stalks you alongside memorable Camp Crystal Lake deaths and with the iconic soundtrack, there are jump scares aplenty. If you’re hard to “get,” you’ll appreciate the attention to detail in making a house that encompasses the Friday the 13th legacy. Even with an express pass, this line was long.

Pro tip: The Jason Universe-themed foods are low-key the HHN snack war winners. We recommend the gouda fondue bread bowl (we paid out of pocket for it); it’s steeped in Angry Orchard cider and comes with green apple slices. It’s available at the same booth as the Jason mask-shaped s’mores. It might be the best food of the horror fest.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: The sheer artistry of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop’s puppetry and HHN performer work makes this one an all-ages all-timer with aplomb. The haunted “animatronics” charging at you or springing to life really works and there are even unexpected jump scares with dead kids creeping up on you as you hover awestruck around Chica or Foxy. Our only complaint is that the stage show centerpiece at the start only featured Freddy; Orlando’s HHN got the whole ensemble.

Chainsaw Man: This import from Universal Studios Japan was an unexpected surprise. Anime fans will delight in a special HHN Japan theater short, which brings the beloved characters (minus Pochita, sadly) into a meta immersive experience where they have to fight demons while attending HHN themselves. The mix of cute, spooky 2D animation and fourth-wall-breaking CG action with a brief adventure featuring the Chainsaw Man gang impresses and I hope we get more overseas fun making its way stateside.

The So-So

Scarecrow featuring Slash: The HHN Hollywood Scarecrow lore grows with Slash providing a new score. The scares and creature work always make this a standout. However, we were a little underwhelmed by the music; we loved the riff composed by the rock legend but the boom-clap beat made us feel like we were comically in a corn whiskey commercial. It threw the spooky energy off. Hit the bar after.

Monstruos 3: Celebrating the horrors of Latin American folklore has been a fantastic staple of HHN and really there’s no one scarier than La Llorona (IYKYK) and her penchant for kidnapping children and feasting on their souls. Alongside another killer vengeful cryptid, La Siguanaba, this house makes for a solid scare-filled experience; it just felt a little on the shorter side or perhaps we caught it while there was a cast change, which happens sometimes.

WWE Presents: The Horrors of The Wyatt Sicks: As an homage to the late wrestler who came up with the entertainment wrestling’s campy horror lore, this house is a sentimental and solid send-off. However, as someone whose horror WWE storylines were Undertaker and Kane, I felt so lost and wasn’t sure how to connect the storyline in the house to the personas in the ring. Could have had a bit more cohesion but the set and costuming were on point; we’ll give it that. Pro-tip: This one has a series of gross-smelling rooms, and you’ll also get sprayed.

Terror Tram: Blumhouse taking over the backlot could have been great but it ends up being more like an elaborate meet-and-greet area than a haunt. Unless you particularly want to meet Blumhouse figures of fright and get more steps in, it’s probably best to skip. But if you’re a horror movie fan and want to explore where the movies are made, this is a good spot. The photos are always great so that’s an upside. Be warned: this experience takes up nearly an hour of your time so plan accordingly.

The Bad

The Purge: Dangerous Waters: This is tired and while we appreciate the effort in the stunts, there hasn’t been a new Purge movie in ages. This space could have been better utilized, perhaps by Fallout, and we’ll explain why in a bit.

Poltergeist: Retire this one.

Fallout: As a fan of Walton Goggins’ Ghoul, there was not enough sassy and scary outlaw Ghoulussy put into this. The Vault scenes were short and focused too much on Lucy’s linear journey rather than giving us a greatest hits of the horrific moments from the Prime Video show. It also wasn’t scary at all and used up so much space in the former Walking Dead year-long house attraction area with few set pieces that it felt over sooner than we would have liked. For a property that’s going to invite long queues, it’s not worth it. A show on the Waterworld stage starring the Ghoul and Lucy squaring off against figures in the wasteland and the Gulper might have been better.

Pro-tip: The Fallout food is a more fun experience; we recommend the Roasted Radroach Legs but also had a particular affinity for the Roasted Stingwing. There’s also RadAway in pouches for you, in-universe-specific item fans.

Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood is open now through November 2. Get tickets here.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Conjuring Last Rites Just Made Horror Movie Box Office History

by admin September 8, 2025

The Conjuring: Last Rites had a massive opening weekend. The ninth film in the Conjuring franchise and fourth entry in the main series racked up over $190 million globally and set a new record for horror films. And it continues Warner Bros’ incredible and historic hot streak.

Arriving in theaters on September 5, The Conjuring: Last Rites brought in $84 million domestically alone, making it the largest domestic opening in the franchise’s history. The horror flick, which stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as famous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, collected $110 million internationally, as reported by Variety. Combined, the film brought in $194 million total.

That bonkers total, which far exceeds WB’s expectations, is not only the biggest opening in the franchise’s history, but it also beat out 2017’s It, which earned $190 million during its opening weekend, and is now the largest debut for a horror flick ever. The entire Conjuring universe, which started in 2013, now sits at $2.3 billion in earnings, making it the highest-grossing horror franchise of all time.

And despite lukewarm critical reviews, Last Rites continues WB’s impressive and historic box office hot streak. The Conjuring: Last Rites is now the seventh film in a row from WB to make $40 million or more during its opening weekend. It started with Minecraft in April and has continued with each WB movie released since then. This kind of hot streak has never happened before. Will it continue? WB’s next movie, One Battle After Another, might not be able to keep the streak going, but we’ll find out when it arrives in theaters later this month.

One final fact: The top three horror film openings in the United States are now The Conjuring: Last Rites, It, and It: Chapter Two. And guess which studio produced and distributed all of those films? Warner Bros.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments