The Church in the Darkness has many famous guest writers

Paranoid Productions' The Church in the Darkness has just arrived on Xbox One, and in a recent post director Richard Rouse has revealed the writing talent that has gone into this project, which tells the story of someone infiltrating a cult in the 1970s on the hunt for their nephew Alex.

Each playthrough tells a unique story, and to help with that - and constructing the world of Freedom Town and its characters - Steve Meretsky came on board, having worked on Planetfall and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the past, as did Marc Laidlaw, who has worked on Half-Life.

Brenda Romero has also helped with the game, having worked on the original Wizardry titles over her long career, along with Brian Moriarty, who Rouse admires in particular for his work on Loom. Chris Avellone was another contributor as well, with Fallout and Planescape: Torment being cited as particularly admirable works, and each of these writers wrote supporting characters who you learn about through environmental storytelling, with each expanding the world in interesting ways.

"I grew up in Southern California in the '70s—a place and an era steeped in cults," Laidlaw said. "The Manson murders and subsequent trials colored my childhood. We watched the news from Jonestown on a TV in my dorm. These experiences were all filtered through the media, of course, and quite impersonal. But one morning, while riding my bike down a short-cut through an alley to school, I saw a woman pushing a stroller shot and killed by her husband; it turned out he had shot her for leaving the local Krishna community. She had left the church so that their daughter could attend school. If one can be said to have an 'informed' opinion on cults, then witnessing a murder is what informed mine."

Does this reassure you as to the game's quality?