First details emerge from Sylvio: Black Waters

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Third installment in otherworldly narrative horror series coming to PC and consoles in 2024

Indie developer Stroboskop has been creeping players out with their ghostly Sylvio horror games since 2015, and they're about to do so again with the upcoming third installment in the series, Black Waters.

While the first two games stayed close to home, Black Waters sees players trapped on an "enigmatic alien planet" that bears many similarities to Earth but is "somehow not quite right." Perhaps that's because it appears everyone here is dead. Fortunately, you soon discover a mysterious device that can be tuned in to hear and talk to the disembodied spirits of those who once lived here, breaking the planet's "oppressive silence." Curiously, it also picks up the voice of a man named Lee, who "claims to be the sole remaining survivor of this place." Is he telling the truth? What happened here that devastated the population and left the world in bizarre, crumbling ruins? The only way to find "answers about the past and, possibly, the future" is to follow the "trail of clues ... into the pitch darkness at the heart of this world."

As with its predecessors, Black Waters is a free-roaming, first-person 3D horror adventure steeped in darkness and haunting atmosphere, with a "multi-layered narrative" through which you must commune with the dead in order to progress. Not only will you "decipher audio-based puzzles to hear the voices of the past" and "decode video recordings to uncover clues," but new this time is gameplay that challenges you to defy physics on a world experiencing gravitational changes. And while the first two games were peaceful if terrifying experiences, here there is real danger, so you will occasionally need to "defend yourself using air-powered weapons."

A release date for Sylvio: Black Waters has not yet been announced, but it's due to arrive on consoles and PC via Steam sometime later this year. Which allows just enough time to get caught up on Sylvio and Sylvio 2 in the meantime, though no prior experience is required to enjoy the new game.

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