New survival horror from Longest Journey and Dreamfall dev

As reported by Eurogamer.

Draugen, in development for PC, Mac, Linux and next-gen consoles, is set in Norway's west coast, famous for its deep fjords and mountains. Oslo-based studio Red Thread described Draugen as a "dark and disturbing journey into the pitch black heart of Norwegian national romanticism, as seen through the eyes of an American nature photographer, botanist and entomologist".

Draugen is set in the early 1920s, in a remote fishing community where everyone has mysteriously vanished. The player explores the settlement, gathering clues and memories as you try to uncover the truth behind a terrible tragedy.

"From time to time, a woman in black can be spotted in the distance," Red Thread teases. "Who is she, and what is her connection to this place? Who is the little girl singing broken lullabies as the sky begins to darken? And when night falls, and those last few, precious drops of kerosene in the lamp feed a fragile, flickering flame, what hides out there in the darkness and in the cold, black sea?

"Discover the clues. Uncover the memories. Decipher the past. Survive the night."

The Longest Journey is one of my all-time favorite games so anything new by Ragnar Tornquist gets my immediate attention. The premise and the setting is pretty unique and interesting. Amnesia sure proved to be a highly influential game.

Your thoughts?

Pretty much all the press release has to say is "we did the Longest Journey" and I'll be there on day one. Dreamfall was good, but I think it lost something with its more "modern" (at that time) graphics. The fact that's it horror does add to the appeal.

i wasn't the biggest fan of the longest journey, but my gripes with that game had more to do with their interpretation of that genre. maybe survival horror will click more.

They're working on this AND Dreamfall Chapters at the same time?

A little reassurance from their website:

I’m sure some of you are wondering how this might affect the development of Dreamfall Chapters.

The simple answer is: it won’t.

Never played Dreamfall, but this game sounds promising.

It's coming to next gen consoles. I'll be all over this for my PS4.

I have never played The Longest Journey, but I am aware that it gets positive marks from a lot of people. With that in mind plus being a fan of survival horror, I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

Yes, yes. Let this surge of survival horror continue.

It's first-person adventure survival horror like Amnesia. Non-combat survival horror games like Amnesia are the only true survival horror games left. Stuff like Resident Evil and Dead Space are just action games masquerading as survival horror.

I'd argue with some of the posts in this thread about which games were influential, but bugger it, this is great news.

If this has half of the atmosphere and mystery of Ragnar's last game, The Secret World, this will be definitely be worth keeping an eye on.

More horror is a good thing, I am interested for sure.

I am so sick of first person horror games. I'd really like more third person horror games.

Looking forward to playing this and Dream Fall Chapters on my PC when they come out hopefully the horror one will support the Occulus Rift assuming it first person.

A lack of combat in a horror game doesn't make it any less "survival horror". Why? It's still about survival. You are free to classify games as you wish, but your "combat-only" criteria for a game to be survival horror is rather off-putting.

If you're trying not to die, and it's a horror game, it's a survival horror game. Fighting back is not a prerequisite to survival.

Woah Dreamfall Chapters is still under development?!Thought I'd never be hearing anything about it.Speaking of a game from the adventure genre is Syberia 3 in the works?

Chapters got a very successful kickstarter, Syberia 3 started production this summer and should be coming out in the next 2 years.

surprising this news didn't come here first. Among the Sleep and Dreamfall chapters were announced here first

That was a long time ago and Resident Evil doesn't fit that description anymore, games like this do. Survival horror is not a genre, it's a design concept (just like open world, for example).

What, I had no idea. I just looked it up, Benoit Sokal is on board so good news.

And yeah, I can't wait for Dreamfall Chapters.

Not trying to derail the thread, but since we're talking about Sokal's genius, have you played and would you recommend Sinking Island and/or Paradise?

Actually no, I haven't played anything apart from the Syberia series.

Well, the concept is what you're actually trying to do. It's a horror game and the emphasis is squarely on your survival.

I disagree. The focus in games such as Resident Evil and Dead Space isn't survival, it is to kill or destroy all your enemies just like in an ordinary action game, this is the only way to progress through the game. In games like Amnesia you can be killed, but you cannot kill. Your only goal is survival. Conceptually and design-wise, it's a huge difference.

Yeah I think that everyone's gonna have his own definition here. Especially when you throw into the mix the "is it scary?" criteria. And actually, I just realized that I never call anything "survival horror", but just "horror".

I agree with the almighty D. Vader.

Alot of genres are being used way too loosely to describe games. Draugen definately fits a Horror Adventure more than it does survival horror, from what I can gather, in survival horror you do have some limited form of fighting back, the survival part comes from limited resources, bullets, batteries, 1st aid, and so on.

Same Amnesia,Silent Hill,Resident evil games before 4 are all horror games to me.

"Discover the clues. Uncover the memories. Decipher the past. Survive the night."

This is very similar to how they described Journey. Uncover lost secrets. Go on an adventure with a stranger.

And all we got was a on the rails game with nothing to do.

The fact that it is set in Norway makes me fairly interested already, considering I'm from Norway myself, hahah.

This one's a lot like L4D a bit more scary