I’ve been spooked by plenty of pixel-art horror games, like Signalis or Look Outside. But I can’t think of an FMV game that’s truly frightened me. The bit in The 7th Guest where hands try to come out of the painting seemed eerie when I was a kid, but now it’s pure kitsch. Watching the first trailer for Tenebris Somnia made me think I might be properly frightened by FMV in a videogame at last.
The second trailer cements that feeling. It bounces back and forth between live-action and the kind of pixel art I associate with games like Maniac Mansion, and while the retro art leaves you to imagine all the gory details of a blood-soaked bed or a two-faced woman with a mouth like a gaping portal to eternal darkness, the FMV cutscenes straight-up show you that stuff and it’s pure nightmare fuel.
I’ve seen a couple of comments where people are suspicious of how good the cutscenes look, since they could pass for a decently budgeted horror movie and we’re used to seeing FMV that looks, well, cheap. “Has AI generation been used in the making of this trailer?” asked someone on the Steam forum. Dave Oshry himself, CEO of publisher New Blood Interactive, showed up to reply, “Absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ not.”
So put your mind at ease. Nothing as terrifying as Stable Diffusion’s power usage appears in Tenebris Somnia, and the only thing we have to fear is the guy with candles for a head. And the flying things with white masks and gigantic teeth. And the round guy in the old-timey suit who vomits. And literally everything else glimpsed in the trailers.
We don’t have a release date yet for Tenebris Somnia, but there is a demo on the Steam page, should you dare to download it.
