Layers of Fear

Though not the most innovative horror game by any means, Bloober Team’s Layers of Fear was significant. Following the studio’s failure with Basement Crawl, Layers of Fear presented a complete shift with its mature storyline and macabre atmosphere. As such, the game showcased Unity’s power in twisted settings with excellent fidelity, creating disturbing sights at a decent clip.

Remember TheChineseRoom, better known for creating games like Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture? It’s recently been acquired by Sumo Digital, which is currently developing Crackdown 3 for the Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. The announcement is shocking, considering TheChineseRoom “went dark” with all staff laid off in September 2017.

A blog post from TheChineseRoom co-founder Dan Pinchbeck revealed the news today. “Following the studio’s closure in summer 2017, we were faced with a decision,” the post read. “We knew we didn’t want to just start over, trying to recapture a time in our history where we could push out arthouse titles and survive the process. It was an amazing few years, but it came at a cost, one that I knew I wasn’t about to take on again. And it was time for a change—to make different games, explore new ideas and, if TCR was going to reboot, to evolve into something that opened up new opportunities.”

Pinchbeck revealed that some concepts which were never developed by the studio are still “very much on the table”. These include titles like The 13th Interior, which Pinchbeck and Andrew Crawshaw (designer of Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture) created a prototype for.

“The game still needs a little bit of work to nail down some core mechanics, but then it’s finding the right opportunity to roll out the rest of development. It’s very much still in the plan to finish it up at some point. There were also two other concepts we were playing around with—very different types of games for us—and they will remain gently percolating in the background,” said Pinchbeck.

Another project, So Let Us Melt, which was in development for VR platform Google Daydream, may also be revisited. “Injecting more mechanics, building on the gorgeous art and audio the old team created and getting it out to a wider audience,” are the current plans, so there’s a chance that it could arrive on other platforms.

Of course, Sumo Digital is also working on a new game with Pinchbeck, which will be bigger than the previously mentioned titles. “It’s exciting times. A fresh start. If this was a game script, a gravelly-voiced man would probably say something about a ‘new dawn’.”

What are your thoughts on TheChineseRoom being brought back and acquired by Sumo Digital? How will this affect the latter’s future, especially after Crackdown 3 has wrapped? What could the “bigger” title be? For now, all we can do is speculate, so let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture helped assure The Chinese Room’s place in the industry but its future is currently up in the air. Founder Dan Pinchbeck has announced in a blog post that there have been lay-offs and the studio plans to have a “pause” of sorts.

After development ended on So Let Us Melt, the studio’s next game, and the usual game pitches and so on were happening, Pinchbeck said a health issue in June motivated him to have a “serious think about things.”

“To cut a long story short, the situation – between financial pressures, trying to keep the lights on for the employed team, the stress of end-of-development, health issues – just wasn’t a tenable thing anymore. It was time to take a break, recharge, recover, and have a good think about the future.”

The result is that the development team has been laid off. “Layoffs are never pleasant, particularly when you’re all trying to wrap a game. We did our best to try and help the team secure new positions, and then we all – the whole team – threw everything we had at wrapping the game. It didn’t feel fair to anyone, least of all people who had spent a year working on a project, to have its completion and release overshadowed by news about the studio closing, so we’ve held off on the announcement until we felt we were clear of all of that.”

That being said, the studio isn’t shutting down. Its game will still be available to purchase and the developer will still be active on social media. Work is still on-going for 13th Interior with a larger team perhaps coming on if needed and the developer has also received funding for Little Orpheus. The former will be in the prototyping phase by 2017 end. Pinchbeck noted that, “We’ll still be about, just not a fully active development team for the time being.”

What are your thoughts on The Chinese Room scaling down? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The Chinese Room, known for developing Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, is apparently working on a new game called Little Orpheus. This was revealed by Creative Europe which has a list of applicants who have successfully received grants. Little Orpheus was provided €72,339 and it’s apparently the name for the isometric RPG title that The Chinese Room calls Total Dark on its website.

If that weren’t enough, the list also revealed that 11 bit Studios (This War of Mine) and Plastic (Bound) have received grants for €150,000. 11 bit Studios is apparently working on a game called Dreamtime, which is interesting because it’s also developing the upcoming Frostpunk.

As for Plastic, it’s next game is called Diama though creative director Michal Staniszewski later told Eurogamer that this would “most probably” change. He also noted that it could change just Bound, which was “A completely different project when we started. A lot of things didn’t work, even if they were brilliant ‘on paper’. We will have to wait and see what the future will bring.”

It also seems like ELEX will be receiving a sequel, having been granted €150,000 despite the first game having yet to release.

The Chinese Room’s first person adventure title Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is finally available on Steam. PC players can pick it up for $19.99.

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is about residents of a small English village going missing and the player trying to decipher the reasons why. Various lights have popped up all over town that can be interacted with to learn more.

The game was originally exclusive to the PS4 when it released in August 2015. PC version has been in development since September. Leaks of the same emerged later and the developer confirmed the news itself recently. The PC release is handled by PlayStation Mobile and follows critical acclaim for the PS4 version.

The Chinese Room is also busy developing a new title in Total Dark which will be heading to PC. It’s classified as an “isometric systems-driven adventure” and your guess is as good as ours as to what that means.

The Chinese Room’s Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture will be releasing on PC. The developer confirmed as much on Twitter, referring to the PC version as “the worst kept secret.” Till now, the adventure mystery title was only available for PlayStation 4 as part of a deal with Sony.

Studio head Dan Pinchbeck said to Rock Paper Shotgun that, “As for the PC version, we started work on it in September and submitted it recently. Sony will be handling the PC release, including management of the Steam page and whatever else there might be, so it should be released as soon as they’ve done testing and preparation.

“It’s good to be back on PC. It’s where we started and it’ll be the home of our next game.”

The Chinese Room also has a new game coming up for PC called Total Dark. Described as an “isometric systems-driven adventure”, with more information coming later today.

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture has been a PS4 exclusive since it launched in the summer of 2015 but it looks like it’s about to be just a console exclusive in the very near future. The leak, which comes in the form of a listing for an AMD driver comes after rumors had surfaced in January that the game might be coming to the PC in 2016.

The release notes show that the AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3.2. has updated the crossfire profiles for both Hitman and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. Of course, we already knew Hitman was on the PC so there isn’t a real surprise there. AMD seems to have certainly spilled the beans on the other game, though. As long as the developers can make this game look as pretty on the PC as it is on the PS4, then it should be quite the win for those who enjoy this type of game.

This leak comes just about a week after one fan of the game asked the developers on Twitter whether or not they were going to be porting the game to the PC. At the time, the developers responded they didn’t have anything to report but they would love to eventually make that move. They still aren’t actually announcing the port but this isn’t something AMD would normally get quite so wrong. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see how this unfolds. In the meantime, you can check out our PS4 review for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is the spiritual successor to 2012’s Dear Esther, but this time skipping out on the PC and becoming exclusive to PlayStation 4, which seems to be a fitting touch based on Sony’s outreach for games targeted towards exotic, or unusual categories. Rapture is indeed unusual. Centering around the small, deserted English town of Shropshire in the 1980s; the only opening clue received comes from a calming voice stating “The answers are in the light.”

It is the player’s job to traverse beautiful grasslands, small villages, and lakeside camps; and collect knowledge of past events through radios, telephones, and an odd, sentient orb of light. Finding out what this seemingly magical light is portraying, alongside discovering where everyone has went is pretty much the entire game. There is no action in this game; no strategizing, no fighting of any sort. Rapture is a walk from beginning all the way to the finish line, all in a first person perspective.

"There is no action in this game; no strategizing, no fighting of any sort. Rapture is a walk from beginning all the way to the finish line, all in a first person perspective."

Upon first stepping into the main character’s shoes and seeing Shropshire all around me and even clear off into the distance, it took me several seconds to realize that this was no cut scene — I was able to move around and play instantly. It was lush foliage, glistening brush, and vibrant flowered plants that felt above playability in a standard game. Certainly something that could only be achieved through cut scenes. But in fact was the standard for Rapture’s visuals.

Exploring a little further revealed houses that honestly looked and felt lived in; a road that had certainly been driven upon by the locals; and a sense of former presence that no longer existed. There was a moment when I may have went a little off my rocker, when I thought — for only a millisecond — I could actually smell those orchids blooming in the English Garden outside an abandoned cottage. The houses were filled with decorative knickknacks, chalkboards along the walls, outlined with the daily special, and even a delicious, mouth watering lager sitting across the bar top.

This land not only felt real, it felt as though it, too, had many stories of its own to tell. Those of happiness, of everyday life, of sorrow and loss. I caught myself from time to time taken aback, wondering “what will become of this town that no one exists?” It was slightly troubling to know so much love in this village was now lost — and these thoughts carried through from town to town. Chirping and singing of birds off in the distance and an occasional bug or bee buzzing by helped calm the emptiness and gave small hope for this land’s future.

"I caught myself from time to time taken aback, wondering “what will become of this town that no one exists?” It was slightly troubling to know so much love in this village was now lost."

A descriptive voice cast sprinkles over tidbits of mixed backstory reaching into relevant, obligatory, or sometimes extraneous information. But even when relevant story plots are sometimes pushed to one side with unessential subplots, it still gives that tact as though other, very normal lives were still being lead before that mass disappearance took place.

Placed throughout the land are radios with recordings from a woman named Kate, a scientist working in an observatory. Voiced by the ever talented Merle Dandridge (best known for her work as Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2, and Marlene in The Last of Us), giving a brilliant take on a character so ordinary. We learn that Kate was on a search to discovering the meaning behind the light while struggling through an emotional tug of war with her worried husband.

As well, a small voice-cast of characters played into their own subplot roles; and by having expressed their own poignant point of voice on this apocalyptic situation, added a touch of life to a physically lifeless world. None of these voices seemed out of place and each one worked well with one another on their short, but intricately narrative journey. A better voice cast could not have been chosen.

"A descriptive voice cast sprinkles over tidbits of mixed backstory reaching into relevant, obligatory, or sometimes extraneous information."

What lies beyond the beautiful graphics, well sought out voice cast, and well paced, emotional narrative? It’s very hard to say this, but what’s left feels little more than a small budget indie title. Yes, The Chinese Room is an indie studio, but Sony had a large hand in Rapture’s development through funding. There is no action in Rapture. There is no fighting. There is no loot. About an hour in, Shropshire feels like a massive land. To most that may sound amazing to have such a large place to roam about and discover its secrets. However, with no collectables, aside from finding — but never collecting — voice recordings on decades old cell phones, phone booths and radios, there is no sense of discovery.

A game four to five hours long of, well, roaming. Each elaborately detailed land begins to meld with previous valley’s or towns. Aesthetics begins to repeat. That sense of discovery loses touch after just a short time. Rapture never gets ugly, it just loses that touch of freshness.

One’s next thought would probably be, “Well, it’s only four to five hours long. Roaming a large land is no big deal if the story is good.” After a short jaunt, that roaming feels like crawling. The walking speed in Rapture feels like the equivalent to a snails pace. It becomes unbearably slow at times. I liked going down all the wrong paths before I go down the correct one, just in case there is something I might have otherwise overlooked, and may not get a chance later to come back; then I realized I had to walk back the way I came — very, very slowly.

Now, it was revealed in an official blog right as the game came out, that speeding up from a crawling pace is possible if the R2 button is held for… seven seconds!! Then continued to be held thereafter. That sounds better than nothing, even if I have to wait a few extra seconds to speed it up. The only problem with that is the difference between “running” and walking is negligible — nearly unnoticeable.

"The walking speed in Rapture feels like the equivalent to a snails pace. It becomes unbearably slow at times."

Gimmicky tilt controls allow mandatory story points to be unlocked in unnecessary fashion. As though the developers knew they didn’t add enough to make this game more interesting past its story. What comes down to a last minute “add the tilt” decision really culminated to nothing in what little gameplay is actually there. I would have actually enjoyed clicking a button — which I so rarely got to do outside of phones, radios, and an occasional door — rather than “fine tune” a tilt of the controller. Sadly, however, the underutilized speaker on the DualShock controller was completely wasted (as usual) when a perfect opportunity could have been created as an optional output for said radios or phones in game.

Overall, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture does blur the lines between what a game can and should be — even if it doesn’t always hit the right notes. It is a journey of self, a journey to understanding fraught with little hope, but hope nonetheless. It opened up a plethora of thoughts: What is the essence of Life? Is it family? Love? Survival? Hope? But a game can not be carried on thought alone. It needs physical substance. To feel that I am actually accomplishing something toward a cause, be it good or bad is something that was so desperately needed. It made me feel like a useless spectator in a game that had already been played out for me.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

The biggest criticism for the just released PlayStation 4 exclusive Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is the game speed, which is just excruciatingly slow. It is so slow, in fact, that it has been a target of criticism, as many feel that it has been included as such simply to artificially increase the length of the game.

However, all of that criticism may be unfounded- responding to all of it, the developers revealed that there is a run button in the game- simply holding down R2 should lead to a gradual increase in your movement speed. It not being immediate, however, might be the reason that most players have not noticed it yet.

“A couple of weeks before the game went to final, Santa Monica did a last round of playtesting,” developers The Chinese Room said in a blog post. “At this point, the game included an autosprint. That meant that if you kept moving, you’d gradually ramp up to a run speed, specifically to deal with issues with how long potential back-tracking could take, given the game’s non-linearity. The problem was, playtesters wanted to be able to trigger it themselves. It didn’t matter about the speed, it was the psychology, the choice.

“So together with Santa Monica, we made a late call. We replaced the autosprint with an R2 trigger hold, keeping the gentle ramp up to main speed. This then needed testing, because it potentially threw out all of the pacing we’d been working on for the last year, plus could cause issues with accidentally parkouring into places you couldn’t escape from, creating game-breaking bugs. All this took time.

“And then suddenly launch was right on top of us, and something had been missed. The controller icon in the options menu was missing the sprint instruction, and it hadn’t been localised. Localisation takes about 24 hours, but because the UI is build in Flash, it would have to be changed, and that would mean a full round of testing before creating a patch- about 4-5 days through the global QA pipieline, which we’re doing now, but wasn’t ready in time for release. It’s in the online manual, but not at the start of the game.

“We probably should have announced the run button before launch, but we didn’t. That was a bad call, and we’ve paid for it in the reviews. But the most important thing is that we get the word out to players, so here we go – although we’d love you to take your time and explore Yaughton at a slow, steady pace, if you need to backtrack or get around more quickly, hold down R2 – it’ll take a few seconds before you are running fully, but it will speed your movement up.

“And sorry for those of you who already played and were frustrated by the speed. Hopefully it didn’t spoil the experience too much for you, and knowing you can get around faster if you need to will make you want to return to explore more. ”

Well, er… that just sounds like a very unfortunate comedy of errors. Still, I mean, I guess it is good to see that the biggest issue of the game does have a fix, that it is, in fact, not an issue at all.

The Chinese Room’s long in development PS4 exclusive Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture will be out on August 11th and there’s quite a bit of mystery surrounding it. However, it seems it may not be as long as one probably expected.

Regarding the game’s length, the developer stated on Twitter that it, “Depends a lot on how much you explore. Probably 4-6 hours. Lots of insides to explore.”

This isn’t too shocking considering the overall length of the studio’s first game Dear Esther and even of Amnesia: A Machine of Pigs. Then again, considering its long development cycle, it does come across as odd.

The studio also remarked that the game wouldn’t be receiving a physical release. “Not unless it sells a very large number of copies.” Such a thing is true for many digital releases so it’s not really that strange.

But what about the length of the game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.