How Concern the Highlight turned Blumhouse’s first online game

Blumhouse wasn’t going to publish a recreation in 2024. The studio, one of many main names in horror movies, announced in February 2023 that it was launching a online game publishing enterprise and executives have been scouting initiatives from unbiased groups with budgets underneath $10 million. The purpose of Blumhouse Video games was to assist just a few rad horror titles per yr, with a tentative plan to begin publishing them in 2025.

However then, in September 2023, the Blumhouse of us stumbled throughout Concern the Highlight. It was a moody, voxelized horror recreation about two associates sneaking round their haunted highschool and communing with the ghosts of scholars that died in a hearth within the ’90s. Spooky shenanigans and mysterious puzzles ensued, all offered in third-person and with a gritty PS One aesthetic. Concern the Highlight was a PC recreation made by Crista Castro and Bryan Singh of Cozy Sport Buddies, a husband-and-wife workforce with spectacular skilled credentials: Castro was an artwork director at Nickelodeon and the artwork lead on the Animaniacs reboot, and Singh was a programmer who labored on The Final of Us and Uncharted collection and Journey. They left their company jobs and based Cozy Sport Buddies throughout the pandemic, and Concern the Highlight was their first main undertaking collectively.

Concern the Highlight didn’t have a very buzzy debut, however just a few weeks after it hit Steam, Blumhouse Video games president Zach Wooden and inventive lead Louise Blain occurred to identify it on Twitter. Castro advised Engadget the way it went down:

“Zach discovered it, and he and Louise Blain sat down and performed it collectively and have been like, oh my gosh, that is precisely the type of recreation that we need to be publishing, that is actually nice. Let’s attain out to them and see, do they want any assist? Is there one thing right here that we will work collectively on?”

“In the meantime, sure, we did need assistance,” Singh added, laughing. “We had launched it, however we had no concept easy methods to get folks to find out about it. The those who have been discovering it have been saying very optimistic issues, and we’re like, OK, that is nice, however now what can we do? We all know easy methods to make issues, however we do not know anything about advertising.”

Blumhouse signed Cozy Sport Buddies and requested how they may assist enhance Concern the Highlight. At first, Castro and Singh steered porting it to consoles and including further languages, staple items to get the present recreation in entrance of extra gamers.

“They have been excited concerning the concept, however then in addition they supplied extra time,” Singh mentioned. “They requested, what would you do in the event you had an additional yr to work on it?”

The chance to increase Concern the Highlight caught Castro and Singh abruptly. It additionally scared them, at first.

“We had by no means actually thought of a major addition to the sport earlier than that,” Singh mentioned. “And we additionally had what we thought was a completed recreation that we have been actually pleased with. So it was actually, actually troublesome to determine easy methods to add to a factor that we felt was completed; we did not need to spoil it. A part of it’s our style and our work, but additionally a part of it appears like black magic. Like, if we mess with it, is it going to return out in a method that we’re pleased with?”

Castro and Singh took the prospect. On October 26, 2023, about one month after Concern the Highlight’s debut, they eliminated it from Steam with the promise that they’d add new gameplay, console variations and localization options. They didn’t point out Blumhouse on the time. Behind the scenes, Blumhouse Video games gave Cozy Sport Buddies one yr to create the definitive model of Concern the Highlight, with no inventive restrictions.

The revamped model of Concern the Highlight got here out on Steam, PS4, PS5, Change and Xbox Sequence X/S on October 22, 2024, developed by Cozy Sport Buddies and printed by Blumhouse Video games. It’s the first game in Blumhouse’s publishing roster, which incorporates future titles from EYES OUT, Half Mermaid, Excellent Rubbish, Playmestudio and Vermila Studios.

Cozy Sport Buddies used the yr of additional improvement time effectively. Somewhat than messing with the black magic of the unique, Castro and Singh added a completely new section, doubling the sport’s run time and increasing on their preliminary concepts in subtle, extra-horrific methods. Concern the Highlight, by the best way, is a wonderful horror expertise. It has low-poly environments, low-res textures and grainy CRT results, however its animations are easy and the digicam makes use of pleasant third-person controls, nailing the nostalgia with out compromising trendy conveniences. The story revolves round two teenage associates, Vivian and Amy, and takes them on particular person however linked journeys by twisted, spirit-infested variations of actuality. Their dialogue and personalities really feel genuine, and their feelings are extremely relatable, whether or not within the face of unspeakable horrors or simply when speaking to a crush. It has just a few good leap scares, too.

The primary half of Concern the Highlight is filled with satisfying puzzles, spooky phantoms and tense hide-and-seek mechanics. The second half, created after Blumhouse’s intervention, provides layers of emotional depth and introduces a really terrifying foe. Vivian is the primary playable character within the authentic model and Amy’s story takes heart stage within the expanded content material.

“The primary Vivian story was actually us determining easy methods to make this recreation,” Castro mentioned. “However then by the point we have been making Amy’s, we had so many classes discovered. I really feel just like the monster is best, the puzzles are higher, the storytelling is extra streamlined. The second half wraps it up actually properly.”

On high of dealing with the artwork, Castro was the primary author on Concern the Highlight, whereas Singh dealt with programming. Castro was the diehard horror fan within the relationship — he was a Resident Evil boy, she was a Silent Hill lady (learn to the theme of Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi) — and collectively, they needed to seize the enjoyable of being scared in online game kind. Concern the Highlight attracts from their private lives and reminiscences of highschool, when each emotion felt new, excessive and typically foolish. From this lens, Concern the Highlight additionally deftly handles critical matters like loss, dying, prejudice and love.

“It is simply such an impactful time in our, in most individuals’s lives,” Castro mentioned. “I grew up enjoying these video games within the ’90s or within the early 2000s, like Silent Hill one and two and three. So pondering again to highschool and the way I felt, writing the story was identical to, I can solely write from my very own private expertise. Having a crush and feeling awkward, and whenever you truly bond with somebody, how particular that’s.”

Singh continued the thread, saying, “I believe the home-life stuff — we bond over a whole lot of our shared expertise, which can be represented within the recreation. Households are sophisticated, household buildings. Having a father that is not current in your life, or the lack of a really shut member of the family, it simply adjustments you and impacts you. These are simply pulled from our lives.”

Castro and Singh lovingly described Blumhouse Video games as a scrappy workforce of horror followers, with fewer than 10 folks supporting a handful of initiatives without delay, and doing so whereas attempting to show themselves in a brand new market. On high of dealing with trailers and press for Concern the Highlight’s re-release, the Blumhouse crew helped Cozy Sport Buddies discover a contractor to do a emblem and key artwork, a porting firm to assist get the sport on consoles, and a localization workforce. Greater than any of that, although, Castro and Singh mentioned the folks at Blumhouse Video games appear to actually benefit from the initiatives they’ve signed.

“They’ve simply been the best accomplice, extremely supportive,” Castro mentioned. “They actually allow us to determine the whole lot for our recreation, the sport is totally our imaginative and prescient. We might present them prototypes and degree designs and naturally, they’d suggestions and ideas, however yeah — ”

“They know our recreation very well,” Singh mentioned. “They’re real followers of the unique launch. They know our recreation intimately and might speak to us about our concepts from a really knowledgeable perspective.”

Castro concluded, “They arrive from it from a assist perspective. Like, how can we show you how to guys create your imaginative and prescient that you care about, that you simply’re proud of. It has been superb.”

Concern the Highlight is obtainable now for $20 on Steam, PS4, PS5, Change and Xbox Sequence X/S.