MoonGlint studio has been working on Echoes of the Living for about eight years with a small team, but it wasn't until about three years ago that the project took off full steam and dedication. This long period of time has resulted in Echoes of the Living feeling more like an AA development than an indie title, in the popular conception of the word. But it's that love of classic survival horror adventures from the turn of the last century that has kept the train rolling, as programmer and level designer Álvaro Becerra tells us in our interview during IndieDevDay 2024.
"Echoes of the Living is a very, very big love letter from us to the fans of classic survival horror games, you know, the ones from the 90s like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark. We really miss those kind of games."
"I think 20 years ago, the last one they did was Resident Evil Remake, if I'm not mistaken. So we liked it so much that we wanted to bring it back, and now we have the tools to make it fully 3D with real-time lighting."
It's not just in its low-poly aesthetic or those shadows and that dark, partially supernatural world that is reminiscent of the genre's classics, but they also take inspiration for presenting their narrative in their pair of main characters.
"There are two main characters. We have Liam Oakwood (...) and we have Laura Reeves, the female character. They both have unique campaigns. Each of them has about 10-12 hours of gameplay, give or take."
"The story they share is not the kind that most people would think of.
They each have their own objectives, their own goals, but they'll have to cooperate in certain situations to help each other and work their way forward."
Echoes of the Living is very close to wrapping up development in time for its PC release via Steam in February 2025, but they hint that won't be the end of their story. "There's also a third character that will be unlocked when you complete both campaigns," said Becerra. "But it will come a little bit later because we ran out of time, so it will come out as a free content update later on."
For now PC is the only confirmed platform, but the team remains hopeful that if the game works, they will be able to port it to other platforms.
"For now we're only releasing it on Steam because we don't have the money to release it on other platforms. But if everything goes well enough, we want to reinvest that money into porting it to PlayStation 5 and Xbox."
So you know, if you've been missing a bit of old-school horror and Silent Hill 2 Remake has been a little too much for you, here's an interesting proposition for early next year.