Observer: Cyberpunk Horrors from Krakow

Bloober Team is a Polish game company, which is based in Krakow. Last year, they have released a very neat horror game called Layers of Fear. It got some traction in the press, was shown at a lot of events, but it wasn’t sort of the magical ‘instant hit’. However, their next game just has enough potential to become this huge break for the company.

It’s called Observer and it’s very similar to Layers of Fear, but it does have one big advantage. It uses modern cyberpunk themes and is firmly rooted in the cyberpunk genre. The game illustrates a society where hacking people’s nightmares is a reality. It also places questions of the moral implications of using people’s most guarded memories as weapons.

You will be required to hack into the minds of criminals and their victims and travel along the surreal landscape. The action takes place in 2084 AD, Krakow, Poland. It does look a lot like Blade Runner and we can’t help loving it. 

The first concept for the setting of >observer_ was introduced shortly before we launched the full version of Layers of Fear, somewhere at the end of 2015. The vision of a Cyberpunk horror game resonated well with the whole team immediately. We wanted to give a unique flavour to our world, which is why we brought the game to Eastern-Europe, complete with the architecture, pop-culture, historical and political references from this part of the world. As a Polish developer we wanted to show some familiarity to Slavic people, but also wanted to keep the universe fresh, almost oriental to Western Europe and Americas.

The first presentation of the game was an exclusive appearance during 2016’s PC Gaming Show (part of E3), where we showed a teaser trailer and a gameplay trailer recorded in-engine. The reception was extremely pleasing and the game’s punchline: “What would you do, if your fears got hacked”, stirred the imagination of journalists and gamers alike.

We have submitted >observer_ for the Game Connection Europe Awards where it was nominated for three awards: Best Console/PC Hardcore, Best Hardcore Game, Most Creative & Original.

Layers of Fear was originally developed with the help of Unity. Observer uses Unreal Engine 4. The developers have approached environment design in a very peculiar manner. They have created a bunch of very narrow and tiny environments, which are filled with a variety of different details. Plus, they’ve used a lot of post effects and additional VFX to make them look digitally surrealistic (if that’s really a thing). The level of details on some shots in this project is absolutely outstanding. Looks positively incredible.

We’d be super excited to see how the game progresses and what kind of other twisted places can we visit in it.