How Concern the Highlight turned Blumhouse’s first online game

Blumhouse wasn’t going to publish a recreation in 2024. The studio, one of many main names in horror movies, announced in February 2023 that it was launching a online game publishing enterprise and executives have been scouting initiatives from unbiased groups with budgets below $10 million. The aim of Blumhouse Video games was to help just a few rad horror titles per yr, with a tentative plan to begin publishing them in 2025.

However then, in September 2023, the Blumhouse people stumbled throughout Concern the Highlight. It was a moody, voxelized horror recreation about two buddies sneaking round their haunted highschool and communing with the ghosts of scholars that died in a hearth within the ’90s. Spooky shenanigans and mysterious puzzles ensued, all offered in third-person and with a gritty PS One aesthetic. Concern the Highlight was a PC recreation made by Crista Castro and Bryan Singh of Cozy Recreation Friends, a husband-and-wife staff with spectacular skilled credentials: Castro was an artwork director at Nickelodeon and the artwork lead on the Animaniacs reboot, and Singh was a programmer who labored on The Final of Us and Uncharted sequence and Journey. They left their company jobs and based Cozy Recreation Friends through the pandemic, and Concern the Highlight was their first main undertaking collectively.

Concern the Highlight didn’t have a very buzzy debut, however just a few weeks after it hit Steam, Blumhouse Video games president Zach Wooden and inventive lead Louise Blain occurred to identify it on Twitter. Castro instructed Engadget the way it went down:

“Zach discovered it, and he and Louise Blain sat down and performed it collectively and have been like, oh my gosh, that is precisely the form of recreation that we wish to be publishing, that is actually nice. Let’s attain out to them and see, do they want any assist? Is there one thing right here that we will work collectively on?”

“In the meantime, sure, we did need assistance,” Singh added, laughing. “We had launched it, however we had no concept tips on how to get folks to find out about it. The those that have been discovering it have been saying very constructive issues, and we’re like, OK, that is nice, however now what will we do? We all know tips on how to make issues, however we do not know anything about advertising.”

Blumhouse signed Cozy Recreation Friends and requested how they may assist enhance Concern the Highlight. At first, Castro and Singh steered porting it to consoles and including further languages, staple items to get the prevailing recreation in entrance of extra gamers.

“They have been excited concerning the concept, however then additionally they provided extra time,” Singh stated. “They requested, what would you do when you had an additional yr to work on it?”

The chance to increase Concern the Highlight caught Castro and Singh abruptly. It additionally scared them, at first.

“We had by no means actually thought-about a major addition to the sport earlier than that,” Singh stated. “And we additionally had what we thought was a completed recreation that we have been actually happy with. So it was actually, actually tough to determine tips on how to add to a factor that we felt was completed; we did not wish to break it. A part of it’s our style and our work, but in addition a part of it appears like black magic. Like, if we mess with it, is it going to come back out in a method that we’re happy with?”

Castro and Singh took the prospect. On October 26, 2023, about one month after Concern the Highlight’s debut, they eliminated it from Steam with the promise that they’d add new gameplay, console variations and localization options. They didn’t point out Blumhouse on the time. Behind the scenes, Blumhouse Video games gave Cozy Recreation Friends one yr to create the definitive model of Concern the Highlight, with no inventive restrictions.

The revamped model of Concern the Highlight got here out on Steam, PS4, PS5, Change and Xbox Collection X/S on October 22, 2024, developed by Cozy Recreation Friends and revealed by Blumhouse Video games. It’s the first game in Blumhouse’s publishing roster, which incorporates future titles from EYES OUT, Half Mermaid, Excellent Rubbish, Playmestudio and Vermila Studios.

Cozy Recreation Friends used the yr of additional growth time nicely. Moderately than messing with the black magic of the unique, Castro and Singh added a wholly new phase, doubling the sport’s run time and increasing on their preliminary concepts in refined, extra-horrific methods. Concern the Highlight, by the way in which, is a superb horror expertise. It has low-poly environments, low-res textures and grainy CRT results, however its animations are clean and the digicam makes use of pleasant third-person controls, nailing the nostalgia with out compromising trendy conveniences. The story revolves round two teenage buddies, Vivian and Amy, and takes them on particular person however linked journeys by twisted, spirit-infested variations of actuality. Their dialogue and personalities really feel genuine, and their feelings are extremely relatable, whether or not within the face of unspeakable horrors or simply when speaking to a crush. It has just a few good bounce scares, too.

The primary half of Concern the Highlight is filled with satisfying puzzles, spooky phantoms and tense hide-and-seek mechanics. The second half, created after Blumhouse’s intervention, provides layers of emotional depth and introduces a very terrifying foe. Vivian is the primary playable character within the authentic model and Amy’s story takes middle stage within the expanded content material.

“The primary Vivian story was actually us determining tips on how to make this recreation,” Castro stated. “However then by the point we have been making Amy’s, we had so many classes realized. I really feel just like the monster is best, the puzzles are higher, the storytelling is extra streamlined. The second half wraps it up actually properly.”

On high of dealing with the artwork, Castro was the primary author on Concern the Highlight, whereas Singh dealt with programming. Castro was the diehard horror fan within the relationship — he was a Resident Evil boy, she was a Silent Hill lady (learn to the theme of Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi) — and collectively, they needed to seize the enjoyable of being scared in online game kind. Concern the Highlight attracts from their private lives and recollections of highschool, when each emotion felt new, excessive and typically foolish. From this lens, Concern the Highlight additionally deftly handles severe matters like loss, loss of life, prejudice and love.

“It is simply such an impactful time in our, in most individuals’s lives,” Castro stated. “I grew up enjoying these video games within the ’90s or within the early 2000s, like Silent Hill one and two and three. So considering again to highschool and the way I felt, writing the story was similar to, I can solely write from my very own private expertise. Having a crush and feeling awkward, and whenever you truly bond with somebody, how particular that’s.”

Singh continued the thread, saying, “I believe the home-life stuff — we bond over numerous our shared expertise, which can be represented within the recreation. Households are difficult, household buildings. Having a father that is not current in your life, or the lack of a really shut member of the family, it simply modifications you and impacts you. These are simply pulled from our lives.”

Castro and Singh lovingly described Blumhouse Video games as a scrappy staff of horror followers, with fewer than 10 folks supporting a handful of initiatives directly, and doing so whereas making an attempt to show themselves in a brand new market. On high of dealing with trailers and press for Concern the Highlight’s re-release, the Blumhouse crew helped Cozy Recreation Friends discover a contractor to do a emblem and key artwork, a porting firm to assist get the sport on consoles, and a localization staff. Greater than any of that, although, Castro and Singh stated the folks at Blumhouse Video games appear to actually benefit from the initiatives they’ve signed.

“They’ve simply been the perfect associate, extremely supportive,” Castro stated. “They actually allow us to resolve every part for our recreation, the sport is totally our imaginative and prescient. We’d present them prototypes and degree designs and naturally, that they had suggestions and ideas, however yeah — ”

“They know our recreation rather well,” Singh stated. “They’re real followers of the unique launch. They know our recreation intimately and might discuss to us about our concepts from a really knowledgeable perspective.”

Castro concluded, “They arrive from it from a help perspective. Like, how can we provide help to guys create your imaginative and prescient that you care about, that you simply’re pleased with. It has been superb.”

Concern the Highlight is obtainable now for $20 on Steam, PS4, PS5, Change and Xbox Collection X/S.