Bureau of Contacts to open through Early Access in June

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Solo or co-op paranormal horror adventure with adaptive ghost behaviour coming to Windows PC

If you have to exorcise a ghost instead of compassionately ushering them to the next plane of existence, chances are they're going to put up a fight. Fortunately you can recruit a little help if you don't dare go it alone in indie Ukrainian developer MiroWin's upcoming supernatural horror adventure, Bureau of Contacts.

As an agent of the titular bureau, you'll be called in to investigate a series of paranormal phenomena, such as the unexplained goings-on in the the "Devil's House" in Somerset Maine. To succeed in cleansing each "cursed environment" of its lingering supernatural entity (or entities), you will need to discover their key characteristics before confronting them. As you progress through "clear and sequential stages of investigation and exorcism," you'll have a "rich arsenal of magic spells, exorcism rituals and various tools" at your disposal, as well as the ability to directly speak to spectres, and have them respond to you. But beware what you say and do to them, as they will dynamically react to your words and deeds through the use of a neural network that is "trained to kill." 

At first glance, Bureau of Contacts looks like any number of traditional first-person, free-roaming 3D horror adventures steeped in darkness, but there's a lot happening under the hood that will only manifest as you go along. For one thing, the case locations you'll visit will continually change, not from completely randomized elements but through a series of "unique environments and new layouts [assigned] from an extensive archive of hand-prepared rooms." Ghosts too will adapt to your approach – even violently – requiring different strategies to overcome. You can play solo or have up to three fellow agents join in your investigation, at which point your very survival may depend on cooperative teamwork. It might seem that "joining forces to achieve a common goal and helping each other" would make things easier, but you must also factor in the "room for betrayal and brutal decisions, where other bureau agents may sacrifice you for their own goals." Either way, you'll have the chance to develop your character through experience, reward, collection, trade and storage systems, giving the game a real roleplaying feel with significant replay value. 

Bureau of Contacts is due to arrive in unfinished form through Early Access on Steam in June, with the full version expected to be completed sometime in 2025 for Windows PC. 

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