The Blessing of Airon bestowed on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Demo also available for tech-based post-apocalyptic horror adventure on Windows PC

Are machines going to rise up and kill us? There's lots of speculative fiction suggesting they someday will, but perhaps none quite like The Blessing of Airon, the newly released horror adventure from indie developer BakerTheGameMaker.

In a far future time centuries from now, the remnants of humanity have "learned to live with and survive the scourge of devices" built many generations earlier. However, a technological plague remains for some electronic equipment, called "Neural Demonic Phenomenae," born of "terrifying devices such as 'game consoles' and 'smart' phones" once designed for entertainment purposes. This affliction can "infest any device capable of computing code for artificial intelligence," causing PCs to bleed and cell phones to burst or "burn bright hundreds of years after their last charge." Yet even now, there are some "drawn to dabble in the dark technological fancies of the ancients in spite of the danger." And perhaps you are one of them – the pastor of a deserted rural church who now struggles to remember the tragedy of your past and have been plagued by nightmares every night since, even as an "evil foe whispers into your mind with any electronic tool available to him."

The Blessing of Airon is a free-roaming, first-person horror adventure in which you can never quite be sure what is real, with time continually jumping between past and present as you trigger long-suppressed memories. As you scour an environment "eerily like an American rural mid-western church community, but somehow not at the same time," you will gradually begin to "uncover the secrets of a world tortured by Neural Demonic Phenomena." Numerous objects can be interacted with, their outlines glowing as you move the targeting reticle over hotspots as you approach, and even zoomed in on for closer inspection. Some provide vital clues for progress, some can be used (automatically) for solving puzzles, while many others build out the world's rich lore piece by piece, including scattered video and audio clips still in playable condition. At times you'll have only a flashlight to illuminate your path, encountering many nerve-jangling effects and the occasional jump scare along the way, though the gameplay itself is designed with "a relaxed pace that favors those who take their time."

If you insist on ignoring all warnings about the inherent dangers of electronic fun, The Blessing of Airon is available now on Steam. If you'd rather sample its wares first, a playable demo can also be downloaded for Windows PC, introducing the first few playable areas of the full game.