RED: Lucid Nightmare is an upcoming survival horror adventure game where you''ll investigate the disappearance of a family during the day and navigate deadly nightmares at night, so for me, a regular Tuesday. You play as Mercedes, a down on her luck investigative journalist (aren't they all?) moving back into her family's remote mountain home after a bit of an accident. After being pulled into a case by an old friend (old friends are always causing problems) she has to figure out what the connection is between her escalating nightmares and the missing family before it's "too late". I'm assuming the "too late" means getting devoured, horribly.
A lot of the game sounds similar to other stuff we've seen before, especially the night parts of the game, where you'll be armed with nothing but a lighter, flashlight, and a radio. You'll keep an eye out for traps, and use auditory clues to avoid monsters who track you throughout the corridors. Once the monsters back off, you'll need to observe the environment and find clues. It'll be interesting how they keep this fresh, although the VR is probably going to add a much needed twist.
The lead designer, Naiche Washburn talked a little about what makes this horror experience fresh:
“Most horror games are comfortable retreading the same territory and exploiting the same cheap tricks and loud noises to surprise their players. From the very first pitch, my goal was to design an experience that showed what I loved about horror and what I thought was missing from current games in the genre. Our goal with RED: Lucid Nightmares is to create a game that focuses on atmosphere, exploration, and terror without relying on jump scares or shock value. My most sincere hope is that the experience of our game follows a player from the screen, down the hallway, and then crawls stealthily underneath their bed.”
It seems like Naiche gets it, and won't rely on BS jump scares as the game's bread and butter, but we'll see when the game drops mid-October.
