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Spooky

Phasmophobia character posing for camera
Product Reviews

Spooky friend-time ghost-em-up Phasmophobia is the next videogame to get the movie treatment

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Back in 2020, Phasmophobia took the formula of reality shows like Ghost Adventures, where frat boys explore a haunted location saying “woah” at every sound, and turned it into early access gold. It was our co-op game of the year, won best debut at The Game Awards, and has gone on to sell 23 million copies. Now it’s being made into a movie.

The Phasmophobia movie will be produced by two studios with experience in horror and videogame adaptations: Blumhouse (M3GAN, Five Nights at Freddy’s) and Atomic Monster (The Conjuring, Mortal Kombat). While I’m sure they could make a movie about some dopes investigating haunted houses and getting strangled by ghosts without paying for the rights to Phasmophobia, it’s good name recognition sure to appeal to anyone who has fond memories of waving crucifixes and thermometers around a child’s bedroom in the dark. Fun times.

“We never could’ve imagined the incredible heights this game would reach when it launched five years ago,” said Daniel Knight, lead developer of Phasmophobia, “and we’re so thankful to our amazing community for the lasting impact Phasmophobia has had in the gaming space and beyond. Working with Blumhouse and Atomic Monster marks an incredible new chapter for the game, and we can’t wait to share more as the project develops.”


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Phasmophobia is still in early access with a major update called Chronicle due on June 24. It’s adding a sound recorder, expanding the media section of the journal with extra things to capture for a perfect investigation, and more.



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A druid wearing a demonic mask holds up a decaying head in a jar.
Product Reviews

Atomfall is getting a spooky DLC set on an offshore island that also lets you blast pretend pirates with a blunderbuss

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Atomfall wasn’t as good as it could have been when it launched in March, mainly due to its barebones combat and anaemic stealth and survival systems. But I nonetheless enjoyed exploring Rebellion’s eerie take on the Lake District while unravelling the mystery behind the catastrophe at the Windscale Power Plant. I’d be more than happy to ramble through a little extra of that world, and it just so happens that more Atomfall will wash up on the Cumbrian coast next week.

The Wicked Isle DLC adds a whole new offshore region to Atomfall’s map. Named Midsummer Island, this area unsurprisingly plays on the folk horror elements of the original. Expect to encounter a lot of druids and at least one wicker man, as well as new locations like a ruined abbey, and a pub called the Jolly Angler.

Despite being in the sea, Midsummer Island is somehow closer to the Windscale plant than much of Atomfall’s vanilla map. Consequently, the inhabitants are more affected by its influence. Enemy factions here include pirate-cosplaying bandits and strange aquatic monsters that look a bit like The Witcher’s drowners. You’ll be able to fight these enemies with several new weapons, including a cutlass, the “Beekeeper’s Staff”, and a blunderbuss shotgun, which you can see in action in the DLC’s trailer above.


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Atomfall – Wicked Isle DLC Trailer | Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, PS5 & PS4 – YouTube

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Personally, I thought the druids were one of the weaker parts of Atomfall’s story, quite generically flavoured murderous nature lovers. But perhaps Wicked Isle can flesh them out a bit in the DLC. Either way, I’m more interested in the new story threads Wicked Isle adds. Atomfall was at its strongest when you were unpeeling the enigma behind the Windscale plant and how it related to the Interchange, the massive, Black Mesa-ish underground research facility that sprawls beneath the area.

Rather than telling a separate tale, Wicked Isle’s story will interweave with the main game. There are several new leads to uncover, some of which will unlock entirely new endings. I liked unpicking Atomfall’s various threads, and your choices had a tangible effect on how everything played out, so that’s a good enough reason for another run.

Wicked Isle arrives on June 3, and will cost $20 (£15) when it does.



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Dark Universe Lore
Product Reviews

All the Spooky Details We Loved at Epic Universe’s Darkmoor

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To Universal Monsters fans, the Dark Universe is everything we’ve wanted to see come alive in a horror theme park dedicated to the terrifying and strange. Without the films, there would be no Universal Pictures or the first Universal Studios theme park, for that matter.

Epic Universe’s Darkmoor is a monument to the monster legacy at the studio, and it’s befitting of all the creature comforts in store for fans. The moment you enter, Danny Elfman’s score for the land echoes through the nooks and crannies of the cobblestone streets and bounces off the brick buildings. You’ll see little homages to various characters, such as Dr. Jekyll’s Apothecary, which we wish was a real shop. There’s a number of walk around characters that share the lore of the monsters, and you might run into the bandaged form of the Invisible Man, or even the Bride and the Monster. On the attractions, the first monsters of the franchise including the Hunchback of Notre Dame (look up when the bell tolls) and the Phantom of the Opera make their presence felt.

The haunting worlds of original films are canon but do get expanded on in intriguing ways. When you meet the Monster you find out he’s just the Bride’s friend, and the experiment from the James Whale movie she was made for lies dead in the queue of Monsters Unchained.

To really get the sense of what those stories would have evolved to in the modern day, you actively have to pay attention to all the small details. When you get there, Ygor asks you to volunteer to help Victoria Frankenstein bring glory back to the family name on her quest to control Dracula (yeah, good luck sis). And even the vampire familiars at Das Stakehaus echo the sentiment that there’s no tying that undead man down.

Over at the Burning Blade Tavern ,you get more about the villagers’ sentiments about who the real monsters are in Darkmoor: the creations or the humans who seek to overpower them? I wish I’d been able to spend more time in the area to talk to every performer to get as much lore out of them as possible because it’s dense. And we only got a few hours there to gather as much spooky intel as possible and try the food and do the Darkmoor Monster Makeup Experience. I am already itching to go back!

To an extent, for the casual theme park fan, it might be a bit much to really wrap their heads around when they ride Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment. You do get to see that Victoria has continued the work of her family name in many ways including making her own version of the monster. But there’s also video clips that play of her and Ygor capturing the Creature From the Black Lagoon and the Wolf Man—there might be more clips but we went through the queue rather quickly. I imagine that she thinks that by making some sort of Monster Squad she’ll live up to her family reputation but might be in over her head. We can’t wait to see how the world continues to grow as more people visit Darkmoor.

Check out the gallery below to get a taste of the fun details and Easter eggs!

 

Epic Universe is now open at Universal Studios Orlando. Travel and accommodations were provided for the purposes of this review.

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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