Episode 19: SPOOOKY Time w/Blair Witch (2019) VIDJO JAME

AH FUCK I GOTTA PROTECT HIMS

Hello all,

This week Mitch and I take on Bloober Team’s Blair Witch game that, upon internet searching, caused GRIEF for horror fans. Mitch and I don’t see it because we both enjoyed our time with Ellis and Bullet as they lose their minds in Burkittsville, MD.

Recently, Bloober put out the remake for Silent Hill 2 (which Mitch adores btw) and one could see how they were inching their way towards a Silent Hill-esque project.

I love the Bloober story. They are a small Eastern European game studio that put out horror games that had a little jank but clearly there was love for the horror genre behind it. And now? Well, they got that big paycheck and they are working on a brand new game that was revealed in the Xbox Showcase this month. It is titled Chronos: The New Dawn

Tackling the Blair Witch IP is not an easy task because what IS Blair Witch as a property? It’s really about getting lost in the woods where time shifts and a bit of lore built in. As Mitch states in the podcast, there really isn’t a reason (story-wise) a sequel needed to be made but due to the $$$$$$ it brought it, it’s a well that IP owners go back to. Lionsgate is currently holding Blair Witch for ransom.

Best feature!

I read a great interview with Barbara Kick who works at Bloober and they were asked about tackling the infamous series

It’s an amazing opportunity for us to work with that and we are very excited because we are fans of the movies. It changed horror forever. I will say that one of the challenges is that people remember it as such a cool thing, such a great phenomenon but they don’t really remember anything else. They have so many things that are just going on in their heads because it was their youth, it was the biggest thing back then but would they react the same way today? Would the people now react the same as the people who they were back then? There is a lot of nostalgia. Nostalgia can be both good and bad because you don’t really know what people expect anymore. Trends have changed. There are countless different movies. What do people expect now and how can we incorporate that into today’s trends? This is very tough and requires a lot of thinking about what players may want to get and how can you give it to them. We are pretty confident players will like [Blair Witch] but it’s always this, are we doing enough? 

You can read the rest of the interview HERE.

Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy, subscribe and LIKE!