With its grotesque creature designs, grisly physical combat, and cinematic first-person presentation, ILL has already made a strong impression on horror fans. But according to developer Team Clout CEO Max Verehin, the studio’s goal is not simply to make a shocking horror game. The team wants players to feel as if they have been trapped inside a believable, tactile, and deeply hostile world.

Speaking to 80 Level, Verehin said Team Clout’s background across games, film, and visual production has played a central role in shaping ILL’s creative direction.

Members of the team have worked on horror films and series, including Until Dawn, IT: Welcome to Derry, V/H/S/Beyond, Longlegs, Azrael, and various Sony Pictures horror projects.

ILL made a major impression with its grotesque creature designs, brutal combat, and cinematic first-person horror atmosphere. For readers who may be discovering the game for the first time, how would you describe the core creative vision behind the project?

Max Verehin, Team Clout CEO: Our team brings a wealth of experience from both the gaming and film industries, having worked on such acclaimed films and series as Until Dawn, IT: Welcome to Derry, V/H/S/Beyond, Longlegs, Azrael, and various Sony Pictures horror projects. Core creative vision was to develop an action-horror game that seamlessly blends the realism and interactivity of the gaming medium with the deep immersion and narrative weight of cinema.

Throughout our careers, we've accumulated a vast arsenal of bold ideas that we are now striving to fully realize in ILL. We want the game to make players genuinely believe they are trapped inside this world, flinching at every single rustle around the corner.

Team Clout has a background in horror film and visual production. How has that experience shaped the way you approach scares, pacing, framing, lighting, creature movement, and overall presentation in ILL?

Max Verehin: That experience has taught us an incredible amount about how to properly build tension and offer moments of release (the tension-and-release technique), how to construct a scare, and what pitfalls to avoid entirely. We know what feels disturbing and frightening to a player, and we understand which psychological buttons to press to evoke the intended emotional response. This includes manipulating environments and spatial layouts to trigger anxiety.

Our cinematic background helps us shoot cutscenes, allowing us to direct them in a way that deepens player immersion into the narrative, the characters, and the overall sense of dread. That said, we have to admit that in video games, it’s a lot more complicated, so we definitely suffer at times. You can't just take away the player's control and force them to look exactly where the scare is, but we are doing our best.

The game’s Aberrations are immediately unsettling because they feel anatomical, physical, and painfully grounded rather than purely fantastical. Can you walk us through the creature design process, from early concept exploration to final in-game implementation?

Max Verehin: Our team has always been fascinated by exploring body horror and uncanny valley effects through our various art pieces and creative projects. First and foremost, these are monsters, so our main challenge is maintaining a fine line when it comes to anatomical plausibility.

Looking at our design process, we've always had a massive pile of wild ideas. We evaluate each one - not just based on how striking or disturbing it is, but on how seamlessly it fits into the world of ILL and the narrative we want to convey. Naturally, we are keeping the exact nature of the mysterious entity and the Aberrations it spawns under wraps for now, but once you play the game, you'll realize that everything has a strict internal logic and purpose.

ILL puts a major emphasis on gore, dismemberment, and bodily destruction. How do you approach brutality in a way that feels horrifying and meaningful rather than simply excessive? Were there any particular inspirations that helped define the tone you wanted to achieve?

Max Verehin: We don't just throw gore around indiscriminately - we apply it purposefully where it matters. We are massive fans of works like John Carpenter's The Thing and Half-Life 2. When you look at The Thing and its approach to body horror, the sheer physicality and raw emotion driven by its practical effects made you believe in what was happening on screen, despite the sci-fi premise. As for Half-Life 2, specifically the “We Don't Go to Ravenholm” chapter, it threw players into the game's darkest segment with a relentless onslaught of grotesque enemies, forcing them to experience genuine anxiety and fight tooth and nail to survive.

These examples perfectly highlight our goal of evoking the right visceral emotions. Delivering that same impact to today's generation of players demands a fresh, deeper approach. Since those classics were released, audience expectations and technological capabilities have evolved. To trigger those same unforgettable sensations now, you have to be much bolder and more creative to truly hit the mark.

From an art production standpoint, what does your pipeline look like? What software and tools does the team use for concept art, modeling, sculpting, texturing, animation, VFX, lighting, and final in-engine implementation?

Alexey “Arpeich” Mikhailov, Team Clout Co-Founder and Art Director: The entire process is anchored by the narrative description and world lore. When designing environments, we start with a level design (LD) blockout. Based on that blockout, we construct a highly detailed 3D concept - essentially proxy art featuring all architectural elements, props, textures, and materials, which we then integrate directly into the build. Next, we drop in a first-pass lighting setup. From there, the prop department, level artists, and technical artists build on top of that proxy baseline.

As production progresses, all proxy assets are systematically swapped out for their game-ready counterparts. This methodology allows us to rapidly gauge the mood and atmosphere of a level firsthand within the engine rather than just staring at 2D concepts, making it far easier for the rest of the team to break down and execute their tasks. Additionally, we pre-built a dedicated slice of an environment for each individual biome to serve as an atmospheric anchor. This ensures every team member has a concrete, visual reference point for the final game-ready quality of the location.

Our software and plugin suite is extensive, including tools like: Blender, ZBrush, 3ds Max, Maya, Plasticity, Photoshop, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Substance Designer, RealityScan, RealityCapture, Marmoset Toolbag, RizomUV, Houdini, UE5, EmberGen, and After Effects.

ILL has a very tactile visual identity, with wet surfaces, exposed flesh, heavy atmosphere, realistic materials, and oppressive environments. How do you approach materials, shaders, lighting, and post-processing to make the world feel so physically uncomfortable?

Alexey “Arpeich” Mikhailov: When it comes to achieving that specific visual identity, as I touched on it above: it boils down to meticulously crafted assets, physically-based lighting, layered materials, exceptional reference gathering, absolute attention to detail, and maintaining a grounded world logic. Above all, the true foundation is our carefully assembled team of veteran artists who possess both vast production experience and impeccable taste, keeping everyone perfectly synchronized throughout development.

Can you talk about the engine behind ILL? What engine are you using, why was it the right choice for this project, and what specific features or custom systems have been most important for achieving the game’s visuals and physicality?

Max Verehin: Achieving a truly gritty and grounded horror atmosphere in ILL demands a powerful technical foundation, which is exactly why we went with Unreal Engine 5. Leveraging its advanced capabilities - specifically Nanite, Lumen, ray tracing, and virtual shadows, is indispensable for our vision. This toolkit empowers us to design dense, oppressive environments where players feel the dread in every flickering light source and shifting shadow.

The game has been described around realistic physics and intense physical interactions. How do physics, animation, hit reactions, weapon handling, and dismemberment all work together to make encounters feel unpredictable and grounded?

Max Verehin: Let's look at a few gameplay scenarios. For instance, you could shoot an explosive barrel, blowing off a creature's limb and launching it across the room. As it flies, it physically collides with objects on a table and even knocks down another incoming monster, completely disrupting its attack phase. This is just one example of how our realistic physics and environment interactions function hand-in-hand with our detailed dismemberment system mid-combat.

Alternatively, imagine you are down to your very last bullet and have to make a split-second decision. Shooting off an Aberration's leg might cause it to collapse, slowing its movement and giving you precious room to maneuver. Or you can target its arm to prevent it from picking up makeshift environmental weapons. However, there's a fascinating catch: severed limbs can morph into entirely separate, autonomous threats and evolve into a new class of Aberration. Players will have to think carefully about how they interact with their surroundings to avoid accidentally multiplying the dangers.

Also, it would be cool to talk about our in-house development - the HorrorShow tool, which dictates unpredictable enemy spawns, dynamic entry points, and varied animation sets. A player can never be completely certain how a scare or an attack will unfold in the next room, which also affects the monsters’ behavior during the fight itself.

Sound seems essential to ILL’s horror, especially with the emphasis on screams, creature noises, and binaural audio. How are you approaching audio design to support tension, spatial awareness, and the emotional impact of the gore?

Max Verehin: This is precisely where our binaural audio system comes into play. We want every single rustle, every falling droplet, and every scream of monstrous agony to completely pierce the player's ears in a full 360-degree soundscape, crawling right under their skin. The goal is to deliver visceral, realistic terror that makes you feel physically present at the scene.

Furthermore, we feature an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack composed by the incredible Alon Mor. He excels at crafting scores that are simultaneously bizarre, unsettling, and hauntingly beautiful, flawlessly channeling the immediate narrative tension and the atmosphere of the environment.

The setting of a massive research fort gives the game room for both claustrophobic interiors and larger exterior spaces. How are you designing environments to support exploration, environmental storytelling, combat, and sustained dread?

Max Verehin: First of all, we approach environment design with meticulous scrutiny, carefully rendering every fracture and chipped surface to ground the player in absolute realism. We rely heavily on environmental storytelling, encouraging players to investigate areas, uncover notes, and piece together subtle clues regarding the broader lore of our world. That said, the core narrative stands firmly on its own feet and will resolve completely, leaving no unanswered questions where it’s needed.

The layout intentionally contrasts claustrophobic indoor environments with outdoor locations exposed to the freezing open air, keeping players off-balance while emphasizing the scale of this huge facility. The fort itself is littered with interactive items and combat opportunities. Atmospherically, it carries a heavy, crushing weight - the entire facility has been overtaken by a mysterious entity, and the monsters are gradually, step-by-step, reshaping the environment to suit their own needs.

Many horror games struggle to balance vulnerability with action, especially when players have firearms or heavy weapons. How are you balancing survival horror tension with the more aggressive, physical combat shown in ILL?

Max Verehin: Striking the perfect balance between action and survival horror is paramount for us. While we don't aim to excessively punish players, we are intentionally designing conditions that force them to actively fight to survive rather than running around like an invincible action hero. Players will have access to a different arsenal of firearms and melee weapons, complete with upgrade mechanics. However, ammunition and supplies will be exceptionally scarce, requiring high tactical awareness during encounters and strict resource management, forcing you to constantly weigh what to expend immediately and what to save for future.

That said, we want the core gameplay loop to remain thoroughly engaging and fun. Even if your ammo dries up completely, you can always rip a steel pipe right off the wall to push back the threats, though even makeshift weapons will degrade and break with use, keeping you on your toes and constantly forcing you to adapt to survive.

Team Clout CEO, Max Verehin