After a Man of Medan that was not unanimous, Supermassive Games will come back this summer with Little Hope. Still in his anthological perspective, we will find the curator to tell us this time a story of witches. A theme necessarily much appreciated by horror cinema and a breeding ground for what the studio wants to do: a series of short stories, each with its own distinct atmosphere and paying homage to the different kinds of horror. Containment requires, so we were entitled to a presentation of Little Hope with no opportunity to get hold of it and an discussion with Pete Samuels, producer of this anthology horror.
Listening for better ergonomics
What is striking is that from the first minutes of presentation, Pete Samuels acknowledges that Man of Medan was appreciated by some players, but that others were disappointed on several points of gameplay and scenario. “Not everyone liked the fixed camera. When it is used, it makes what we do more cinematic and it frames what we want the player to see, which is important with the horror and the tension of what we see and what we don’t see […] but giving 360 ° control over the camera is very useful for exploring the environment. ” explains Pete Samuels. From what we could see, it will make exploring dark forests much more interesting but it is not the only technical change.
Little Hope’s approach to QTE has also been reviewed. These actions will no longer take the player by surprise and we won’t be punished if we didn’t have time to react because we put our controller down for two seconds to watch a cutscene and we’ll be entitled to small warnings. Rather than a simple touch, the game will give us a clear indication of the action we want to do. We will also be entitled to many more contextual indications with elements of the environment during the exploration phases. And finally, we will have different walking rhythms to stop going two by the hour. In short, a lot of new things that we could see in demonstration that will make Little Hope much clearer and more ergonomic than Man of Medan and even bring a little freedom with this camera system.
A new way of telling
The interesting aspect of Little Hope from a scriptwriting point of view is that it will take place over three periods different. Settlers will be followed at the founding of Little Hope, a family in the 1970s and a group of students today, whose school trip ends up making a forced stop in the small town. The actors will be the same for each period, in different roles and we’ll find out what unites everyone. Pete Samuels explained the process to arrive at this scriptwriting choice. “We didn’t start development with the idea of the three eras, but rather with having people trapped in an abandoned city and then we started to learn about the witches of Salem and many other things. From that, we ended up two years ago now with about twenty scenarios. Then we chose eight with this common theme before finally choosing three, but who knows what will become of the other five stories. ”
While Man of Medan was inspired by the true legend of Ourang Medan, Little Hope will take its plot from the infamous Salem witch trials. “We want it to be credible and if we relate to things that really happened, we cannot say that it is not possible, because it happened. The fact that this is a real myth makes everything more palpable. ” explained Pete Samuels on this choice to use real legends and superstitions, before adding that “It’s fascinating to reinterpret these facts that really happened and it almost feels like we are creating our own theory about what really happened.”
An encouraging presentation
Of course, it’s difficult to have a clear opinion without having been able to test Little Hope but it is rather encouraging to see that we are going to leave in a management very different from Man of Medan, both in terms of gameplay and story telling. We were told once again that it would take 4-5 hours approximately and there is always the possibility to replay in multi. The small detail that will necessarily delight fans of horror is that Little Hope will be classified PEGI 18 (against PEGI 16 for Man of Medan). “We will do what is necessary for the story, without paying attention to the classification. Not all horror stories need blood and gore to be scary. It depends on the mechanics that we want to use to arouse fear and we are not looking for the rating at all costs ” nevertheless clarified Pete Samuels by way of conclusion.
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