Fear the Spotlight and What’s Next for Blumhouse’s Big Leap in Horror Games

BHG’s current plan is to release three games per year for the next three years. Although other publishers do excellent work in the indie space (Devolver Digital and Team17, to name two), the costs of developing and publishing games and the sheer number of new games fighting for traction customer attention on a monthly basis means it’s increasingly rare. seeing major labels invest in new intellectual properties rather than exploiting established franchises. Blumhouse has plenty of these to choose from, so why not adapt one for a new medium?

“It may seem easy, but in reality it is very difficult to get it right,” Blain says. “That’s not to say we’ll never work on Blumhouse IP, but it has to be the right projects at the right time. You want it to seem authentic and sincere, and everything that someone wants from it.

Currently, BHG is preparing titles like Sleeping awakedescribed as “a first-person psychedelic horror set in the distant future”, in which people disappear when they allow themselves to fall asleep; The simulationa true crime-inspired mystery about video game design; Crisol: Theater of Idolsa first-person shooter in which “the player must sacrifice their own blood to use it as ammunition”; And Funeral seasonsthe eye-catching pixelated farming sim murder mystery set in a town stalked by a supernatural serial killer.

But first on the release schedule is Fear the spotlighta third-person horror adventure about best friends Vivian and Amy, who sneak into their high school after dark to perform a seance. Naturally, things go horribly wrong, leaving the teenage girls trapped in a nightmarish version of the school haunted by sinister forces.

“Fear the spotlight kind of embodies everything we want to say as Blumhouse Games,” Blain says of the three-to-five-hour experience. “It’s got incredible storytelling, great characters, and some truly incredible mechanics. It’s really scary, it’s intense. This is a complete package of everything we want people to know about Blumhouse Games. This ticks all the boxes.

The short hands-on demo we played at Summer Game Fest was indeed a scary time that slowly built up the tension. You take control of Viv and follow Amy through the dimly lit hallways of the school, dodging security cameras on your way to the library for the session. As you explore, you encounter clues that reveal more about the school’s tragic past and foreshadow what awaits the girls when they are inevitably transported to a terrifying new realm of reality.