GhostBustr: Survival Horror DreadOut Haunting Next Week

I'm bored with our Anglo-American ghosts and monsters--headless nobles, goblins, orcs, Slendermen, Frankensteins, and people in bedsheets--and want to see more of other cultures' ghoulies. Part of why The Witcher was so refreshing is that it introduced us to Slavic spooks from noonwraiths to drowners, unpleasant things which felt grounded in a place and culture. Knowing nothing about Southeast Asian folklore, I'm quite keen to meet its terrors in DreadOut, a survival horror inspired by the Fatal Frame/Project Zero series and made by an Indonesian team.

It'll arrive on Steam on May 15, developers Digital Happiness have announced. (That's my greatest fear: happiness.) Come have a gander at some of the ghosties in a new trailer.

DreadOut sees a load of schoolchildren stumbling into a ghost town after wandering away from their group, calling the buddy system into question. Luckily plucky schoolgirl Linda discovers she's a little bit magical and can bust ghosts by snapping photos of them on her camera or phone. Not just any old ghosts, but "unique South East Asian Ghosts that you will have never seen before," the devs say. They're planning to add an Indonesian voice option after launch too, giving a little extra atmosphere.

I would like to meet those ghosts. And take pictures of them. Then tweet the pictures. Hopefully it'll have a front camera option so I can snap spectral selfies too.

A year-old demo of DreadOut is still out there from when Digital Happiness were crowdfund campaigning, though one imagines things have changed a bit since then. Here, the new trailer: