Blumhouse Games Execs Lay Out Plans for New Games, IP Adaptations – MASHAHER

During gaming industry expo Summer Game Fest last month, Jason Blum took the stage to unveil the inaugural slate of titles for his Blumhouse Games division, which launched in February 2023.

While the through line for the six indie games was of course horror (we’d expect nothing less from the producers of “Halloween,” “The Purge,” “Paranormal Activity,” “M3GAN” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” film franchises), the fear factor varied wildly from an adorable farming and town sim with a murder-element to a first-person adventure where folklore mixes with religion in a nightmarish version of Spain.

The significant differences among the offerings showcase Blumhouse Games commitment to scare you in typical Blumhouse fashion, but also appeal to the many different kinds of gamers across the market: those who like “cozy” games, those who like intense first-person shooters and everyone in between.

“We’ll exist in the horror space. I think the incredible thing about horror is it’s so vast,” Blumhouse Games creative lead Louise Blain told Variety. “There are so many different sub genres, like supernatural. And with Blumhouse shows or movies, they go across the gamut of horror and that’s really what we want to embrace: horror in all of its forms. And that means that what you’re looking at on the slate is twisted and weird games, and then playing a pixelated cozy agriculture game with murder. The scope is very, very large, as long as you’re playing in the giant format that is horror and the unknown, it can feel like jumpscares, it can feel like exploring a dark corner in a haunted home, and can also feel like, why are the farmers dying in this cute town? The thing is, you could actually really enjoy a horror game, you just didn’t know which one you want to play.”

While the majority of Blumhouse Games’ upcoming titles are still in the development stage and don’t yet have release dates, “Fear the Spotlight” is targeting a launch later this year. From indie developer Cozy Pal Games (see, “cozy” is a vibe Blumhouse is here for), the game is described as “a creepy love letter to classic ’90s teen horror stories” that follows friends Vivian and Amy who sneak into school after hours and survive a seance gone wrong and attempt to uncover the disturbing mystery behind a school tragedy decades before.

And for this current lineup of initial titles, Blumhouse will not utilize any microtransaction models. “We’re not doing any sort of in-game monetization at all,” Blumhouse Games president Zach Wood said. “We’re starting with single-player experiences small in scope with premium pricing. But because of the scope of the game it will be in the $10 to $30 price points, roughly.”

Of course, the games could become bigger in the future, and Wood says Blumhouse is interested in, at some point, capitalizing on its own IP and creating games based on its successful film and TV horror franchises.

“We’re interested in the fresh ideas in horror,” Wood said. “And that doesn’t mean that we won’t be making games based on existing Blumhouse IP in the future — we certainly would like to. But a lot of that is just the right timing. It’s the right idea, it’s the right creative team. And those things need to align the right way, because it’s meaningful for us that we do right by the IP and really make great games the fans expect. It’s a lot of work, so we want to be very careful about that.”

See Blumhouse Games’ initial slate of video games below.