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When it comes to new horror games, there are times of feast and famine, and this past year we gorged until our bellies bulged and our mouths dripped with gruesome grease. In 2024, we received a rich spread of dark experiences from solo creators, indie teams, AA developers and AAA studios in a vast array of genres and visual styles. There was a fantastic Silent Hill 2 remake and beefy updates to contemporary classics like Phasmophobia, Alan Wake 2 and The Outlast Trials, and there was also a steady cadence of brand-new horror franchises expanding the genre in unexpected ways. First, lets take a moment to celebrate a sampling of the years fresh horror universes. In 2024, we got the following new titles: Crow Country from brothers Adam Vian and Tom Vian at SFB Games Fear the Spotlight from husband-and-wife team Cozy Game Pals Hollowbody by solo dev Nathan Hamley at Headware Games Home Safety Hotline by Utah studio Night Signal Entertainment INDIKA from Spain- and Kazakhstan-based studio Odd Meter Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess from Capcom Lorelei and the Laser Eyes by the high-strangeness experts at Simogo Mouthwashing from Swedish indie team Wrong Organ Slitterhead by Silent Hill and Gravity Rush creator Keiichir Toyama at Bokeh Game Studios Still Wakes the Deep from horror veterans The Chinese Room This is not a comprehensive list of new horror franchises in 2024, but its a suitable demonstration of how vast and varied the offerings were this year. Indie studios are leading the charge when it comes to fresh ideas and original mechanics, of course, but there are also plenty of references to early-2000s graphics and PS1- or PS2-era survival horror on this list. The combination of innovation and nostalgia is particularly potent in titles like Fear the Spotlight, Crow Country, Mouthwashing and Hollowbody. These games infuse blocky 3D worlds with modern sensibilities and smooth animations, resulting in experiences that illuminate the staticky memories of Resident Evil and Silent Hill that lurk in our heads. This is how we wanted those games to feel, fixed camera angles be damned or, in the case of Hollowbody, lovingly embraced. Fear the SpotlightCozy Game Pals It should also be noted that Fear the Spotlight marks the debut of acclaimed horror-movie maker Blumhouse as a video game publisher. Fear the Spotlight is the first release in Blumhouses lineup which includes future titles from EYES OUT, Half Mermaid, Perfect Garbage, Playmestudio and Vermila Studios and its an excellent exploration of low-fi teenage drama and dread. The horror-game revolution is upon us and Blumhouse is absolutely going to snag a piece. The least horror-like game on the above list may be Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and it also happens to be the only title from a AAA studio. Ive included it because, as a dedicated fan of horror games, I think Kunitsu-Gami checks plenty of boxes: It features huge, disgusting demons and a lethal blight that envelops whole towns in skeletal yet strangely juicy organic material. Its monster designs feature colorful displays of lechery and body horror, and theres comfort to be found in its tense strategy-action gameplay loop. Kunitsu-Gami wasnt marketed as a horror experience, and it certainly contains just as many scenes of stunning beauty as it does grotesquerie, but I heartily recommend it to any horror fan. I think youll be pleasantly surprised. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the GoddessCapcom INDIKA is another entry that straddles the genres of horror, camp and religious satire, but it definitely features a few scenes of soul-piercing terror. Plus, the literal devil is your friendly companion throughout the game, and that has to count for something. Among scenes of grief, inhumanity and devastation, INDIKA is a laugh riot, and its a preeminent example of mature themes handled well in video game form. An additional genre-bending standout from 2024 is Simogos Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. It contains incredibly satisfying logic puzzles in a hotel made out of mysteries but phantoms haunt the hallways, theres a corpse in the back garden and every scene drips with palpable unease. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is one of the best and most unsettling games of the year, period. Still Wakes the Deep, meanwhile, offers a familiar and beautiful brand of monster-stalking horror on an oil rig in the middle of the angry North Sea. Its a must-play game for any horror fan, acting as a vessel for The Chinese Room to show off its skills in building authentic worlds and cultivating ceaseless tension with a paranormal edge. Plus, it's one of the best-looking games I played on PS5 all year. Slitterhead is another one for the action-horror players out there, presenting a supernatural mystery in a version of Hong Kong thats been infested by body-snatching demons, featuring buckets of bloodand frantic close-range combat. Still Wakes the DeepThe Chinese Room The year began with the release of Home Safety Hotline, a simulation of a 1990s call center where players help diagnose and treat household pests, which include otherworldly threats like Bed Teeth, Fae Flu, The Horde, Laundry Gnome, Mirror Nymph, Toilet Hobb, Unicorn Fungi and others. Home Safety Hotline really was the amuse bouche of 2024s horror game lineup and Mouthwashing is the dessert. All the horror kids nowadays are playing Mouthwashing, a polygonal first-person romp through a stranded space ship filled with doomed crew members steadily losing their minds, overseen by a maimed captain with a maniacal, bandaged smile. Mouthwashing is strange and claustrophobic, and its a fabulous way to end the year in horror gaming. Silent Hill 2Bloober Team But we havent even talked about the existing franchises yet. The Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team, the Polish studio behind Layers of Fear and Blair Witch, was a brilliant success, even in the face of exacting standards from longtime series fans. The remake looks and feels like the game that players remember, only spit-shined and smoothed over, and Silent Hill 2 remains just as terrifying in 2024 as it originally was in 2001. Maybe even more so. Bloober Team had a lot to prove with this one, and they made us elder-Millennial horror players proud. Alan Wake 2 was one of the best games of 2023, horror or otherwise, and it received two significant batches of DLC this year: Night Springs landed in June and The Lake House went live in October. Each bit of content not only keeps Alan Wakes hellish world alive, but it adds depth to the cross-franchise universe that Remedy is building between Control and Alan Wake. Personally I always want more Alan Wake, and in that regard, 2024 didnt disappoint. The Outlast TrialsRed Barrels Two live-service indie games, The Outlast Trials and Phasmophobia, also saw major updates in the past 12 months. After entering early access in May 2023, The Outlast Trials studio Red Barrels has been working to establish a solid cadence of new content drops, and this year they really got into the groove. The Outlast Trials launched in full in March 2024 and its received multiple updates since then, introducing new enemies, maps, game modes and limited-time events for the players trapped in the Murkoff Corporations secret Sinyala Facility. The amount of work that Red Barrels puts into The Outlast Trials is endlessly impressive, especially considering there are only about 65 developers at the studio. Phasmophobia has an even smaller team than Red Barrels, but theyre making big moves. The crew at UK studio Kinetic Games have kept Phasmophobia alive since its Steam launch in September 2020, and this year, they finally brought the ghost-hunting game to consoles. Phasmophobia hit PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 29, and it also came to PS VR2. Kinetic Games has grand plans to keep supporting and expanding Phasmophobia in 2025 and beyond, so even though the console release happened four years after launch, this is really just the beginning. Lorelei and the Laser EyesSimogo There it is our humble ode to horror gaming in 2024. Its been a dozen months of indie innovation and gorgeous gore, with a side dish of fabulous remakes and sizable updates. Some new horror games push against the boundaries of the genre, expanding our ideas of whats scary and why, while others find fresh ways to dissect classic tropes. Its a case of modern cuisine vs. comfort food, and on my plate, theres plenty of room for both.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dang-2024-was-a-great-year-for-horror-game-fans-160009640.html?src=rss
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Its no secret that Russia has been slowly working towards eschewing as much Western technology as it can and developing its own, and its latest effort seems to be related to video games. On December 25, Anton Gorelkin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, revealed some information on a domestic video game console being developed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, as reported by TechSpot. The theoretical console will have an Elbrus processor and be powered by either Aurora or Alt Linux, both Russian forks of the popular Linux operating system. According to TechSpot, the Elbrus processor was developed by the Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies and primarily designed for defense, critical infrastructure and other applications. This processor isnt up to what Intel, AMD and Arm produce right now, and it certainly wont reach PS5 or Xbox levels of power. Despite the weaker chipset, Gorelkin stressed that the console isnt designed to play ports of older games, but will play domestic video game products. Presumably, this means Russia will also need its own developer community to design these games. Theres also another console called Fog Play in development, but its more of a cloud-gaming device. Users with high-end computers can rent them out to Fog Play owners, who play games on these computers through the cloud. These potential consoles are only one aspect of Russias broader technological sovereignty plans. Ever since its invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions, Russia has been trying to make this a reality but digital isolation is making this difficult. The adoption of Astra Linux in government, intelligence, military and even educational computers is another Russian effort to develop its own technology. To this end, Russia is also trying to replace file and website scanner VirusTotal (owned by Google) with its own Multiscanner platform in fears of US government infiltration. Despite this progress, Russia is still heavily reliant on Chinas technology. Chinese smartphones are popular there, and Chinese electronics and dual-use technology continue to enter Russia even as the Middle Kingdom no longer exports them to the US. Russia is likely unable to achieve true technological independence, in video gaming or other crucial areas, as it relies too much on China and doesnt have the capabilities to produce PS5 or Xbox-level chips. The two Russian video game consoles serve as a good example of the challenges the country faces given its poor relations with many of the worlds superpowers. Just like the Elbrus processor isnt going to truly compete against the best consoles, Russia will likely continue to struggle for technological sovereignty.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/russia-is-trying-to-make-its-own-game-consoles-in-a-bid-for-technological-independence-151358041.html?src=rss
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Terraforms Labs CEO Do Kwon spent the last day of 2024 getting extradited to the US, Reuters reports. Kwon faces charges in the US for "orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities." The Terraforms co-founder has been held in Montenegro since March 2023, when he tried to board a flight with a forged passport six months after Interpol put out a "red notice" warrant for his arrest. South Korean-based Terraforms Labs wiped out $40 billion from the crypto market when its TerraUSD and Luna stable coins turned out to not be so stable and collapsed in May 2022. Kwon had already fled South Korea the month before. The US announced its charges in February 2023, with the SEC chair Gary Gensler stating, "We allege that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with full, fair, and truthful disclosure as required for a host of crypto asset securities, most notably for Luna and TerraUSD. We also allege that they committed fraud by repeating false and misleading statements to build trust before causing devastating losses for investors." South Korea has issued similar charges. Montenegro doesn't have extradition treaties with the US or South Korea. The request played out in court over the last year and a half, with Montenegro's Justice Minister Bojan Bozovic ordering Kwon's extradition last week. Terraform Labs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US last January. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/terraform-labs-co-founder-do-kwon-will-face-securities-fraud-charges-in-the-us-142734704.html?src=rss
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