Bloober Team certainly appears to be the busiest horror studio in the business right now. Off the back of its 2024 Silent Hill 2 remake selling over 5 million copies, the Polish developer currently has a staggering seven horror games in various stages of production. During Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show in Bangkok last week, IGN sat down with Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno to get an insight into the secrets to his studio’s success, its ambitious plans for the future, and why horror has become such a bankable genre in recent years.
“I would say that horror is always at its strongest when something bad is happening to the world,” said Babieno. “When we have climate changes, when we have wars, [or] when we have some economical issues in the world. This is the moment when society [has] some kind of fear inside.”
“That’s why horror movies, horror novels, and horror games are working so well," he continued. "It’s working for horror, but I’m not happy about it because it always means that the world is not in good shape.”
Babieno is obviously not wrong. Humanity is currently faced with a global cost of living crisis, increasingly volatile weather events, ongoing wars between Russia and Ukraine and the U.S. and Iran, and the existential threat posed by the rapidly accelerating adoption of AI across virtually every major industry.
At the same time, the horror genre has rarely been hotter across most entertainment mediums. Indie horror films Backrooms and Obsession became major success stories at the box office earlier this year, with the latter going on to make over half a billion dollars. The Resident Evil series continues to be one of the most dominant brands in the genre, with its latest video game instalment Resident Evil Requiem selling 8.5 million copies since its launch in February, and its latest big screen adaptation from Weapons director Zach Cregger quickly becoming the highest-grossing Resident Evil movie ever.
The surging popularity of spooks and scares has also spread to many popular streaming services. Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie performing strong enough on Prime Video in order to be renewed for a second season. Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake has apparently become one of Peacock’s biggest scripted original series. Meanwhile Apple’s Widows Bay is one of the most celebrated TV shows of the year – horror or otherwise – snaring a whopping 14 Emmy Awards in September.
Even comic book movies are turning to the genre, with the DCU’s thoroughly disturbing Clayface enjoying a strong opening weekend in October. Public domain characters have also proved to be ripe for the picking, with two Winnie the Pooh slasher movies already released and a third one on the way in January.
However, Bloober Team is no bandwagon-jumper. Although the foundational years of the studio were spent producing a mix of casual games and contract work, the developer has been singularly focussed on becoming a specialist house of horror since it launched Layers of Fear in 2016. In the decade since, Bloober has steadily risen to become one of the most trusted conjurers of fear and dread in videogames, proving to be equally adept at reimagining licensed properties as it is at establishing new IPs of its own.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/horror-is-always-at-its-strongest-when-something-bad-is-happening-to-the-world-boss-of-silent-hill-remake-dev-bloober-reveals-the-secret-to-his-studios-success
