Summary
The creative director of Frictional Games, the studio most famous for producing the iconicAmnesiaseries, has said in an interview that his company will be moving away from horror elements in its future projects. The studio originally rose to prominence after the breakthrough success ofAmnesia: The Dark Descent,a classic of the horror genre that became the first entry in the now-belovedAmnesiafranchise.
Frictional released its first game,Penumbra: Overture, back in 2007, and quickly followed up with a sequel the next year calledPenumbra: Black Plague.These two horror titles contained many of the themes and mechanics that would later become recognizable staples of the studio’s work, including physics puzzles, exploration, and a story that unfolds via written notes discovered by the player. Frictional sought to build and improve on these elements when developingThe Dark Descent, which was released in 2010 and truly put the company on the map, as it quickly became one ofthe most popular survival horror games of all time.
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Despite its strong roots in the horror genre, Frictional is now looking to move away from making spooky games. In a recent interview, the studio’s creative director Thomas Grip talked about the company’s history as well as its plans for the future. About the latter, he indicated that in upcoming projects, he plans to “cut back a bit on the horror aspects to give greater focus on other emotional qualities.” He said that Frictional’s main design goals have always been creating immersion and evoking emotions in players. Horror is a great way to accomplish these goals, but Grip thinks that the stories he wants to tell “could be told in another genre.” Grip’s sentiment is well supported by the fact that many of the most belovedimmersive video gamesfall well outside the horror genre.
In addition to this announcement, Grip also touched on a number of other topics in his interview. Notably, he expressed that he does not consider Frictional Games to be an indie game studio, despite its small size and development budgets. Grip sees the distinction as one of competitiveness: he does not believe Frictional is “competing on a lower level” compared to large AAA studios. While there may be plenty of widelybeloved indie gamesout there, Grip doesn’t wish to embrace the indie label because he and his team “want to be the ones that make the best experience in whatever genre that we choose to work with, even if that is populated by games from AAA studios.”
Indie opinions aside, the indications of Frictional’s future design direction are the most noteworthy revelations to be found in Grip’s interview. It is quite understandable for a development team that has only ever worked within a single genre to want to branch out and try new things, but it remains to be seen how fans will react to a scare-free experience from Frictional. Given that the studio is known exclusively for survival horror, any projects outside that genre risk losing the feeling of a Frictional game, which may alienate devoted fans. With that being said, manyiconic game franchises have changed genresover the years, some with great success, so the outcome of Frictional’s decision to move away from horror is by no means guaranteed.
