Mike Skupa is an industry veteran that worked on Rockstar Games’ beloved Bully as design director and fulfilled the same role on United Front’s cult classic Sleeping Dogs. He’s certainly got clout in the world of video games, especially within the open-world genre, but now it appears as though he’s looking to broaden his horizons by developing a new horror game that may or may not come to PlayStation.
As head of an upstart independent game development studio based in Vancouver, Canada titled Brass Token, Skupa shared news of the untitled horror game he and his team are working on in a deep-dive interview with Eurogamer. You might have heard whispers about a game called The Chant previously, but while that title has since been ditched, development on the game is continuing to progress nicely.
The seed for this game was planted at a time when Skupa still worked for United Front Games, noting that he’d traveled alongside his dog in order to take reference photographs for a potential project set to be developed by the ill-fated studio. Now, utilizing that trip and also drawing on negative life events from the period, he’s said to be channeling his own emotions into the project for a “personal touch” he believes benefits to the game.
Only in the early stages of development at this time, the project will cast players as a woman that’s prone to panic attacks and as a result is seeking help for her condition on a “rural island retreat.” There she’ll encounter various characters while aiming to maintain her sanity (a tangible in-game statistic) as her overall interpretation of reality slowly begins to bend. The game’s brand of horror is said to be “other-worldly” and not “too dark,” with players also being able to engage in combo-based combat.
Skupa and Brass Token are actively seeking partners to aid in bringing the game to PC and reportedly just one major console platform. Which platform remains to be seen, but with PlayStation being the current market leader, either the PS4 or PS5 would presumably be a desirable destination.
