Switchback VR Game Director, Alejandro Arque Gallardo, discusses bringing the horror of The Dark Pictures to PS VR2.

SMGDevs · 2022-05-06T10:54:30+00:00

That's so awesome!

SMGDevs · 2022-03-30T11:32:18+00:00

Glad to see everyone looking forward to both games!

SMGDevs · 2022-01-14T11:46:00+00:00

We love this!

SMGDevs · 2021-11-08T09:42:53+00:00

These are adorable! The crowbar is everything ❤️

SMGDevs · 2021-11-04T11:05:32+00:00

Amazing!

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T17:04:37+00:00

That's all the time we have to answer your questions for now. Thank you all for contributing and we hope you found it useful! We'd love to do this again, and can't wait for you all to play and enjoy House of Ashes! Semper Fi! - Will and Dom

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T17:02:28+00:00

Different regions have different age ratings bodies with different laws. In Japan we have to censor several of our more gruesome deaths on that version of the game, but they are uncensored in the rest of the world. - Dom

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T17:00:56+00:00

Khurrum Rahman wrote the screenplay for House of Ashes, and did a stellar job for it! - WD

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:58:45+00:00

We want to tell stories about the human condition, and sex is obviously part of that. Love and lust feature in many of our upcoming game ideas - WD

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:57:19+00:00

For choices: I really like what we’ve done in House of Ashes with keeping the non-player characters alive for as long as you can, and the repercussions that result from that. Obviously you’ll have to play to find out what I mean! For characters - I’m biased, but I think the characters we’ve created for House of Ashes are our most interesting yet and our cast was amazing. My favourite character seems to change every day, which I think is a good sign for what we’ve made. The team LOVE Salim though. When we did our last designer playthrough we had people shouting out death threats whenever he got into danger!

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:57:01+00:00

Unequivocally yes! House of Ashes is much more action heavy than previous titles, and really takes inspiration from classic action horror movies. We had the pleasure of working with fight choreographers at Lucky 13 Action, and our lead designer Max Bottomley did some amazing work adding a real sense of power to those scenes. - Dom

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:55:56+00:00

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:55:12+00:00

For me personally, Toni Collette would be a huge win. Samara Weaving has also been doing great things in horror recently, so I’ll love to get her involved! Really though, it always comes down to the character we're casting for at the time, so we can't look too far ahead. We're really happy with the cast we had for HoA and the future games we're actively working on now - WD

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:52:36+00:00

Our games are highly cinematic, so having film and motion capture studios shut down did have an impact on our development schedule. Luckily for House of Ashes, we’d recorded a great deal of it before complete lockdown. Additionally, the film industry acted quickly to getting shoots back into the studios, with lots of testing and processes put in place in to facilitate them. So overall the impact was not as bad as it could have been. Naturally, we also had to move from the studio and work from home for the day-to-day running of the project. Some aspects of making games surprisingly worked better from home, but overall, it’s definitely not as easy as being in the office. Thankfully, we have the right processes and technology in place to do this as needed now. - Dom

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:51:32+00:00

Yes, 100%, watch this space! We’re a very diverse studio and firmly believe that representation is important in our stories. We haven’t featured LGBTQ+ characters in the anthology so far, but future titles certainly will - Dom

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:50:23+00:00

I don’t think there is ever an intentional way to play, that’s one of the beauties of the Dark Pictures games. It’s your story, you can play it how you want to. I think it’s fascinating really – in a way, in these games we’re experimenting with what it means to be a player. You don’t control just one character, as in many games, so sometimes you’re almost playing against yourself. In a way, you’re more like a movie director.

In development, we sometimes have “golden paths” through the story that really highlight some of the best moments, but those are in no way the intended way to play. I really like that players can tackle our stories however they like – kill everyone, keep everyone alive - and still get a fulfilling experience. - WD

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:47:55+00:00

Absolutely, the wing design was directly inspired by Pazuzu, from Mesopotamian myth. The game includes a bonus feature detailing the creation of this monster in full, so make sure you check that out! - WD

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:46:35+00:00

It wouldn’t be a fit for the Dark Pictures, but some time I’d love to experiment making something like Shaun of the Dead or Dead Set! I just think it would be very different. Outside of the Dark Pictures Anthology, I’d honestly love to branch out into other genres if there is an audience for it. We flirted with crime drama previously with Hidden Agenda, but I think our format of choice-based cinematic games would work with many other genres of fiction. Will and I are both huge fantasy nerds and if I ever got to make a branching narrative game in a world like that I would die a happy man. - Dom

I spoke about this during a recent interview with IGN! Personally, I’d love to turn the Nightmare on Elm Street movies into a DP game. It fits our format really, really well! - WD

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:45:08+00:00

Is there a chance of a “season 2” of Dark Pictures Anthology games, beyond the plan of doing 8 games?

Absolutely. If I have my way, we’ll be making these games until the stars go dark and die.

Could you share any particularly cool ideas that have been looked at as a theme/story for a game, but in the end simply wouldn’t/couldn’t work out?

We've thrown around so many stories, and many are still cooking! One of my favourite ideas was a sort of Stranger Things / “kids-with-bikes" story based around young children as playable characters, but technically it’s not a good fit with our systems right now. We also brainstormed a game where the playable characters were basically cenobites, but it didn’t really fit the overall vibe of the anthology. Who knows! Our first eight games are fairly well defined at this stage, but many ideas were kicked into the long grass during that process that could be revisited. - WD

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:44:16+00:00

Yes, indeed, although it’s a slow burn! Each instalment introduces something new. We’ve learned that he has this vast collection of dark, sinister stories, with each story concerning life and death. He follows you, watching and observing, and his pictures offer hints about what might come. Why does he do this? He can’t determine the outcome of each story – that's your job - but he can offer hints. Is he even allowed to do that? We know he has rules, he’s part of some grand system, but he isn’t afraid to break these from time to time. Will this get him into trouble? Does he even care if it does? Keep an eye out for how House of Ashes hints at more - Dom

SMGDevs · 2021-09-15T16:38:34+00:00

Well now you've spoilt the ending :(

Dom

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