Perception Trailer
By Fergus O'Sullivan 18 January 2017
The Deep End Games announces Perception, an innovative new horror game set in an abandoned mansion with a blind protagonist who sees the world through sound.
Fans of the Bioshock and Dead Space series will be happy to know that a group of devs that worked on both these popular franchises have banded together to form The Deep End Games. This new studio is currently working on a very innovative horror game, called Perception, that tasks players with guiding a blind, female protagonist, named Cassie around an abandoned mansion.
The hook of Perception is that Cassie may be blind, but can still see thanks to echolocation – as she walks, she taps her cane to reveal the game world bit by bit to the player controlling her. The trailer below gives the audience a taste of what this will look like and it promises to be absolutely terrifying. The Deep End Games has combined a very dark aesthetic with this slow reveal of the world to create a truly new way of dealing with shadows and gloom.
The reason Cassie finds herself in the mansion on Echo Bluff is that for several months she has been suffering from nightmares. Some vigorous research has led her to the abandoned house on the New England coast, where she intends to get to the bottom of the mystery once and for all. As seen in the Perception trailer, she is so anxious to figure out what’s going on she decides to go ahead and enter the building without waiting for her, presumably sighted, friend. Cassie seems to be part of a new breed of heroines with attitude, who’s not going to let a small handicap like blindness stand in her way.
Cassie’s blindness creates Perception‘s signature look, but is also part of gameplay: she can’t see without making noise, but the monsters that infest the mansion are alerted to her presence by it, forcing players to choose between being able to see what’s around them or being eaten. It’s a unique feature and an interesting twist on the mechanic of the Alan Wake franchise, while also taking notes from the exploration mechanic in Dead Space, where even a quick look around can kill the player in horrific ways.
That the gameplay reminds of Dead Space and Bioshock is no surprise considering the team behind The Deep End Games, but the Lovecraftian elements – like a New England mansion shrouded in darkness – are an interesting shift in tone compared to those earlier games. The studio had intended for Perception to come out in June 2016, and made GameRant’s most anticipated horror games list for that year, but was delayed for unknown reasons.
All in all, however, Perception looks like it will be a very fresh take on the horror genre, full of jump scares as well as atmospheric terror. If only it had been announced a few weeks earlier, we would gladly have put it on our list of 2017 horror games to look out for.
Perception has no release date yet, but will be available on PS4.
