Dark Mass forming for PC and console release

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Horror adventure spent entirely underwater coming soon from the creators of Insomnis

Path Games is no stranger to toying with people's sanity in eerily haunted environs, having first done so back in 2021 with the psychological horror adventure Insomnis. For their upcoming new project, Dark Mass, the indie Spanish developer is looking to do much the same thing, only a whole lot wetter and a lot farther down. 

This time around, players slip into the wetsuit of Alice, a deep-sea explorer who gets the opportunity of a lifetime when an earthquake uncovers secrets that have been buried for centuries at the bottom of the ocean. What neither Alice nor her brother Reed topside ever expected was to uncover an old decrepit mansion, a sinister-looking manor "lost to time, untouched by the world above, hiding a dark curse." As Alice soon discovers, she is definitely not alone down here. Not sharks or other deadly natural predators, but rather something else that "watches from the darkness." When Alice becomes trapped, players will need to help her "survive the horrors lurking within, solve disturbing ritualistic puzzles, and face the horrifying truth that binds her to this place."

In many ways, Dark Mass is a like a typical first-person, free-roaming 3D survival horror adventure. You're on your own to explore the manor's "decaying halls," able to communicate only with Reed in the boat above through fully voiced dialogue via walkie-talkie. To progress you must "solve unique challenges inspired by historical inquisitorial tortures," and avoid becoming the next victim of Silas, a "monstrous entity bound to the manor for centuries." What separates this game from the others, of course, is that here you're underwater the entire time. The difference is not merely cosmetic, either, though it does instill a particularly creepy layer of oppressive claustrophobia to the realistic Unreal Engine 5-rendered graphics. Instead, the environmental physics involved in being submerged will impact your ability to move as you otherwise would, intended to add "new layers of tension" and immersion. Under this kind of pressure, both literal and figurative, you'll have choices to make as well, which will "influence how Alice’s story unfolds and concludes."

There is no firm target release date for Dark Mass just yet, but the game is "coming soon" to Steam for Windows PC, along with console version for PlayStation and Xbox platforms.