The year is 1984 and the place is East Germany. Pollard Studio does little to hide the fact that their upcoming dystopian horror game Karma: The Dark World will centre on themes such as surveillance, control and personal freedom. But the packaging is still a little deceptive. This is not 1984 as we know it - neither from George Orwell's iconic novel nor the history books - and the game's East Germany is certainly not socialist.
You play as Daniel, a so-called "roam agent" for the Leviathan Thought Bureau. Leviathan is, as the name suggests, a gigantic organisation; in fact, they are so powerful that they control just about everything that goes on in East Germany. How this affects the balance of power in the Eastern Bloc is unknown, but in practice you act as a kind of detective, delving into people's memories to solve crimes.
If you've played Bloober Team's atmospheric Observer, you'll recognise this setup, and the developers make no secret that this game - along with BioShock and Silent Hill - has been a major source of inspiration. We've looked at those games trying to see what we can learn from them. What works for us, and what doesn't. We don't really have a lot of jump scares compared to other horror games because we want to create that creeping feeling that puts pressure on you, instead of just scaring you," explains the game's technical director Chin Tin.
It's not just the story that brings Bloober Team to mind, but also the level design. The preview takes place about halfway through the game. We are tasked with investigating a man who has lost his arm. He believes it was torn off by a monster and this is also reflected in his dream-like memories.
Initially, the environment seems very realistic - with the exception of the chasing monster of course - but it all quickly becomes very weird, with doors appearing out of nowhere and rooms turning upside down. Still, my journey through the dream never felt directionless or random, as the surroundings had plenty of natural clues, such as string lights helping me find my way through a ventilation duct. The few times I got a bit stuck or was caught by the monster thus never feel unfair.
While Karma: The Dark World may initially seem like a walking sim (or running sim, when the monster catches sight of you), we also find more traditional gameplay in the form of puzzles. Some of these have a primarily thematic function, such as when, towards the end of the demo, I have to stamp an endless series of documents in a boring office. But we also find puzzles designed to test your logic or observation. For example, at one point I have to find a specific CRT TV, and in another instance, I had to look hard for a hidden door.
"We have tried our best to mix storytelling, chases and puzzles. We are trying to balance those elements. But each chapter will also have some exclusive gameplay, a little bit of spin on the formula, that fits that specific chapter. The game will not be too hard to get through, but still challenging enough so that it will be fun," Tin explains about the gameplay.
What primarily makes Karma: The Dark World stand out from the many, many other first-person horror games are the unique setting and visual style. CRT TVs and classic infomercials coexist alongside unknown mind-altering drugs and psychological methods that reflects the Cold War's the-end-justify-the-means mentality. It's a fascinating universe and the monster and environmental design is of a particularly high quality.
About the game's universe, Tin says: " The Cold War had this, almost kind of myth, of both sides having access to secret technology that was hidden from the other side. It's a topic we can go a little bit crazy with. We have technology that's definitely not existing in our world, but we can make it up as a fiction. Other influences were the films of David Lynch and of course the novel 1984."
As you can probably tell, I was quite excited about the experience, especially considering the size of Pollard Studio. Karma: The Dark World is the debut game for the Shanghai-based studio with 20 employees, and development, which began back in 2018, has certainly not always been easy, says game director Lu Chen. "During the development we phased the Covid-19 pandemic. We had to stay at home for nearly six months. We had planned to do the voice overs and motion capture separately for each of our four chapters, but because of the pandemic, we had to do all those things together at one time. So that was a bit of a mess."
Chen also says that getting to develop a game in China primarily aimed at customers in the West has been a challenge, as the gaming market in China is very different. However, the studio has an experienced partner in the Watford-based publisher Wired Productions, and since the development of Karma: The Dark World began, games like Genshin Impact and Black Myth: Wukong have helped opening the doors to the West for the Chinese games industry.
There is no word yet on when Karma: The Dark World will release, but we can't imagine it's that far off, as Chen says that they are currently in the polishing phase of development, and all of the game's chapters are complete. "For the internal tests it's about 5 or 6 hours long, but we already know how to play it. For the player it will be almost 10 hours," she reveals about the length of the game. Soon, you'll even be able to try the game yourself, as a demo will be available October 14-21 at Steam Next Fest.