Sleeping Sickness: BioWare Tease Horror Game

A teaser trailer, released without a great deal of context via what appears to be a viral marketing campaign. Not the sort of thing I'd normally bother you all with but what little context there is does capture the imagination. First of all, it's a BioWare teaser and it doesn't look like part of an established series, unless it's a very peculiar Jade Empire reboot. Second point of interest is that it looks like it might be marketing for a horror game about a man wearing a hoodie, which places it in an established genre. Edit: Could these nightmares be the first hint of the Failbetter/BioWare collaboration? Delicious.

The main draw is the tagline though - "What really happens when we sleep?" I posed the question to the RPS newsroom. Answers and video below.

I'd be chuffed it this was simply a game about a cinematographer who has particularly well-framed nightmares. No big mystery, no enemies to fight and no supernatural elements. Just weird dreams all the way down.

That won't be the case. The brief email that contained the link to the trailer ("YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN", it read, meaning that I almost skipped past it thinking it was a Peruvian Lotto scam) contained dark mutterings about power levels rising. Seriously.

"The time is near...they are watching. Your power is rising. You’ve been chosen."

Righto. We'll find out more at Gamescom in a few weeks I'd imagine. Mostly because I saw a reference to the event on the YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN website when it loaded briefly this morning. It's dead now. Or sleeping perhaps, which brings us neatly to that question.

"What really happens when we sleep, RPS?"

Alec - "We lie in bed feeling infinitely sorry for ourselves and waiting for the screaming from the nursery to begin."

Alice - "REGRET"

Ben - "At the moment? A lot of sweating." (presumably because of the Great Blighty Heatwave rather than anything untoward - Ed)

Graham, Jim and John aren't around so I consulted last night's footage of their sleeping forms that automatically uploads to my private Twitch streams.

Turns out that as soon as Graham's head hits the pillow, his beard detaches itself from the chin area and goes to the pub. It's a cider drinker.

Jim sleeps with his eyes open, if such an intensely furrowed mind can be said to sleep at all.

John lies on the top layer of a ball pit and slowly sinks beneath the surface as he falls into slumber.

As for me? I haven't slept in a year.