Blumhouse has been a mainstay in the horror genre since 2009’s Paranormal Activity, and has helped create many iconic series over the years. Last year, they entered the world of video games and founded a publishing company focused on low-budget horror projects.
At this year’s Summer Games Fest, we announced a lineup of six titles under the new banner, including the debut release Fear the Spotlight from developer Cozy Game Pals. The game was actually originally released in 2023, but Blumhouse picked it up and provided the funding to polish the game and add additional content.
I didn’t have a chance to check it out when it was first released, but after playing the final product, it’s easy to see how they caught the eye of Blumhouse.
Fear the Spotlight offers something different to the retro survival horror genre by targeting a young adult audience. Rather than focusing on combat or resource management, you’ll be presented with a series of tense stealth sequences and clever puzzles that slowly tell the story as you traverse the environment. There are also no fixed camera angles, giving you complete control over your perspective, much like in a more modern third-person game. Jump scares and frights are replaced with an eerie atmosphere and a grounded, relatable, tragic ghostly story. It’s a perfect introduction to a horror game that feels both classic and modern, something you don’t often see in the retro horror world.
The story starts off very simple and then spirals into something more surreal. You play as Vivian. Vivian sneaks into Sunnyside High School after hours with her friend Amy to perform a seance in the library. Of course, the seance fails, and Amy disappears into a twisted nightmare of a school. As you explore to find your friends, you gradually uncover the secrets of the horrifying events that rocked the school in the ’90s. This is a story involving bullying, unrequited love, and stalking that feels timeless and relevant to the high school experience. The two stories, Vivian’s exploration of her school and her past tragedies, are both compelling and emotionally resonant, with great dialogue and sharp characters.
Not only is a horror story that focuses on young protagonists exhilarating, but high school also makes for a great setting for spooky things to happen. Things get more and more surreal as the story progresses, but you can still recognize the classic landmarks of the high school, even as things turn nightmarish. Looking at the TV on the cart and the overhead projector in the classroom reminded me that the location was smartly tied to the lore notes there. Learning about a swimming accident near the pool and seeing the remains of a bullying rally in the gym makes the setting feel vivid and realistic. Fear the Spotlight cleverly uses this location to connect past and present stories, while also using it as a way to connect with viewers’ shared experiences of that time in our lives. Masu.
The eeriness of the place is brought to life in a great-looking low-poly retro style. The dimly lit hallway benefits from its chunky model look, helping to place you in the ’90s mindset of the flashback story. The lighting is particularly bright in this visual style, making the vague things you see in the dark even more creepy before cutting into the darkness with a flashlight. There’s also great audio design, keeping you tense as you hear things in the distance, while also giving your enemies a signature sound that will scare them.
Progress within the school is controlled by a series of clever puzzles that brilliantly combine real world and dream logic. Apart from collecting items and using them to solve puzzles correctly, you will mainly be interacting with items in a first-person perspective where you need to obtain and interact with certain elements. The opening séance also has great interaction, requiring you to light the candles by slowly moving your cursor from candle to candle, and to hold the planchette clicked and stationary while it’s going on. This is a great physical element that enhances the atmosphere of the game and makes it stand out from other games in this genre. One particularly good puzzle involves restoring a fuse box, where you have to insert a fuse and physically turn a knob to get the power to the right level. None of the puzzles were too difficult, but they were enough to make me feel smarter when I solved them. This is one of my favorite aspects of this subgenre in general, and its tactile nature elevated this aspect of Fear the Spotlight.
Since you play as a teenager, there is no traditional combat in the game, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to fight enemies. Sometimes all you see is a figure that doesn’t approach you in the darkness around you, but sometimes you come across someone who shines a spotlight on your head and tries to corner you. You’ll need to rely on your stealth skills to find hiding spots to avoid being exposed to lights that scan the room trying to track you. If you’re caught, you’ll need to take a puff of an inhaler to recover, but this is a clever twist on the traditional healing mechanism that makes you feel dangerous without being bloody. Occasionally, the stealth sections can leave you waiting too long for the spotlight to move, but for the most part it works well, especially when the final showdown at the end of the game finds an interesting way to remix the idea. I will.
While the game’s main scenario is a great, well-paced story that lasts around 2-3 hours, this release comes with additional stories that shed even more light on the game’s characters and world. They are set in very dense levels that are self-contained and take just over an hour, adding to the main story but standing alone. The puzzles still have that great Silent Hill-esque surrealism, and are a thematically appropriate twist on the main game’s gameplay. All in all, this is some of my favorite content in the game, and I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to expand the story into something richer and more complex.
Blumhouse is clearly off to a great start in the video game world with Fear the Spotlight. This is a heartwarming story packed with clever, tactile puzzles and spooky sequences. Nothing too scary, but that’s not a bad thing. Because it feels like a great way to introduce someone to the genre while being satisfying for genre veterans. This game not only shows me that I trust Blumhouse Games, but it’s clear that Cozy Game Pals has a lot of respect and knowledge of this genre, so I’m not sure what else they’re doing. They will fulfill your wishes as to what is available.
Code provided by publisher. Fear the Spotlight will be released on October 22nd for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
