Observer coming August 15th, starring Rutger Hauer
The star of Ladyhawke
First-person cyberpunk thrill-o-horror Observer [official site] will launch on August 15th, developers Bloober Team have announced. After trapping us in a painter's kooky spookhouse with Layers of Fear, this time Bloober are blasting us off into the grim future where everything sucks. It stars a cyberdetective jacking into suspects' heads, and Bloober have now confirmed he is voiced by Rutger Hauer. You know, Rutger Hauer from Ladyhawke! And Blind Fury! And Blade Runner too I guess.
Hear Hauer's gravelly tones in this new trailer:
For more on what Observer is all about, here's the marketing blurb:
"The year is 2084. If you somehow survived the Nanophage, odds are you were killed in the War. Those who live have turned to drugs, VR, neural implants — anything to distract themselves from this new reality. You are Daniel Lazarski, an elite neural detective known as an Observer, and part of a corporate-funded police unit whose purpose is to hack and invade suspects' minds. In this future, anything you think, feel, or remember can be used against you in a court of law.
"When you receive a mysterious message from your estranged son, a high-level engineer for the almighty Chiron Corporation, you journey to the seedy Class C slums of Krakow to investigate. But as you hack into the unstable minds of criminals and victims to look for clues, you are forced relive their darkest fears. How far will you go to discover the truth?"
If there's one thing I like, it's being miserable in the future (and in the game) so fingers crossed that this gets beyond jumpscares in ways that Layers of Fear didn't. Our Adam's Wot I Think declared, "Layers of Fear is an effective scare 'em up but the sense of dislocation and the lack of character development left me feeling as if I'd enjoyed a thematically messy series of shocks rather than a cohesive horror story."
Go on, really put me inside this old man.