This year at RTX 2017, Layers of Fear game developer Bloober Team showed off a playable demo of their upcoming horror game Observer (or, >observer_). Players dive into a dark Cyberpunk version of Cracow, Poland and take on the role of an Observer- a member of a corporate-funded police unit. The Observer hacks and invades people’s minds, while dealing with their own fears.
As mentioned, Observer is from the team that brought us the excellent Layers of Fear last year. It was my favorite indie game of 2016, so I was excited to check out the Observer demo at RTX. The game used some of the same mechanics that worked so well in Layers of Fear, which is basically making you feel crazy as you play. Nothing is ever as it seems and if you feel lost, sometimes all you need to do is turn around and find a whole new area that wasn’t there two seconds ago. As with Layers of Fear, the heavy environment makes for fantastic scares and a sense of dread around every corner.
These are far from cheap scares, however. The Bloober Team brought us a beautifully dark and well-told story in Layers and will seemingly bring us yet another unsettling, yet rich story. For fans of mystery and horror, do yourself a favor and put this one on your radar. You can check out Layers of Fear on Steam, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 to hold you over until its release.
Observer is set to release this year.
