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Dark Dreams is a retro survival-horror game with one terrifying twist: Its cutscenes are live-action set pieces crafted by an expert in disturbing cinema. Dark Dreams is set to hit PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S on October 16, as announced during the Day of the Devs summer showcase. That leaves plenty of time to adjust your Halloween costume.
The meat of Dark Dreams takes place in a world of jagged, ’90s-inspired 2D graphics, which only makes the sudden switch to real-life film all the more effective. You play as a young Argentine woman named Julia who becomes trapped in a nightmare of vicious monsters and otherworldly terrors, and she has to fight, flee, solve puzzles and manage consumables in order to escape. In terms of vibes, Dark Dreams is inspired by survival-horror classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but it has its own dueling art styles.
The game comes from indie team Saibot Studios and it’s directed by Andrés Borghi, who’s famous in my house for handling the visual effects in When Evil Lurksone of the best horror films of the past few years. On top of his tenure as a visual effects producer in movies, Borghi is a multimedia horror artist and director, and he partnered with Saibot on the 2021 fighting game The Black Heart.
Additionally, the executive producer of Dark Dreams is Airdorf (legal name Mason Smith), the creator of acclaimed retro-horror series Faith: The Unholy Trinity. Faith publisher New Blood Interactive is also handling Dark Dreamsand New Blood is responsible for getting Airdorf and Borghi together in the first place. In the Day of the Devs presentation, New Blood co-founder Dave Oshry explained that he connected the creators because he knew Borghi was a fan of Airdorf’s. He didn’t realize the admiration was mutual.
“Andrés was the director of one of my favorite horror short films, Alexia,” Airdorf said. “And so I was really excited, I immediately said yes. I didn’t put it together at the time, but I think it was just this weird evil twist of fate that we get to work together now.”
From what we can see in the trailers and Steam demo for Dark Dreamsboth of its visual approaches are highly successful, on their own and in concert. The game has vibrant and detailed pixel art, plus crisp live-action footage of hellish beasts and bleeding pointed teeth, and the shock of the switch is part of the appeal. The cinematic scenes are less campy and more viscerally haunting, which I guess is what happens when you work with an award-winning cinematic special effects team.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that Dark Dreams looks fantastic and it finally has a release date that’s just in time for spooky season. The fact that it’s coming to a wide swathe of platforms — Steam, GOG, and consoles from the current and just-gone generation — is only a bonus.
