Baggy Cat Spiele, the studio behind the viral FMV horror title At Dead Of Night, has confirmed that a sequel is “coming (very) soon.
At Dead Of Night 2: The Great Hugo continues the story where the original left off, reuniting players with Maya as she sets out to investigate a large Tudor manor house.
At Dead Of Night rose to fame quickly during the pandemic, thanks to streamers and content creators such as Markiplier, 8-BitRyan, John Wolfe, and DomPlays, who introduced audiences to Jimmy Hall, a creepy hotel landlord hellbent on recruiting an audience for his late-night comedy show and his psychopathic comedy alter ego, Hugo Punch.
The new game, subtitled The Great Hugo, takes place half a decade later.
“Five years later, Maya is still haunted by her experiences in Sea View Hotel,” the blurb teases. “Desperate for answers, she remembers the ghost box she used in the hotel, left there when she escaped.
“After searching on [auction] sites and in antique shops, she finds a similar-looking device, but can’t get it to work. She contacts an old friend and counsellor, Quinn, who had helped her understand her supernatural experiences in the hotel. Quinn recognises the device and knows where they were made – by an inventor who used to live in a large Tudor manor house not far from Sea View – but warns her against trying to get it working. However, Maya ignores his advice and goes on her own investigation.”
Exactly how long “(very) soon” is, we don’t yet know, but we’ll keep you posted.
If you’re still in the Halloween mood – and why wouldn’t you be; horror games are for life, not just for Halloween – the developer of horror hit The Mortuary Assistant released Playable Archive this week as a Halloween freebie.
As its slightly cheeky title implies, Playable Archive (a riff on the legendary Playable Teaser created for Hideo Kojima’s cancelled Silent Hill game) is a small slice of developer Brian Clarke’s much larger cancelled Paranormal Activity game, making it a fascinating window into ‘what could have been’.
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Nagoshi Studio has officially closed and its debut title, Gang of Dragon, appears to have been abandoned, months after publisher NetEase withdrew funding from the Yakuza-style project.
Toshihiro Nagoshi—often credited as the creator of the acclaimed Yakuza and Like A Dragon series—launched his new studio in 2021 and revealed his next game, under a deliberately familiar title, nearly a year ago. The Tokyo-based developer has now shut its doors, as confirmed in the Japanese official gazette, Kanpo.
The news follows months during which employees were told the studio’s future was in jeopardy because of NetEase’s funding cuts. Nagoshi Studio reportedly required a further £33.1 million (around $44.4m at the time) to bring Gang of Dragon to completion—a sum NetEase reportedly declined to provide.
The China-based publisher of Marvel Rivals and Where Winds Meet has been significantly scaling back its international investments over the past few years. Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios was shut down shortly after launching its stylish action game, Worlds Untold (a studio formed by Mass Effect veteran Mac Walters) had to pause operations to seek a new partner, and Halo Infinite lead Jerry Hook’s studio also faced very similar problems last year.
Some developers have been a little luckier. Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture saved itself through a management buyout and now operates as an independent developer.
Little is known about Gang of Dragon, but its debut trailer featured the violent crime and high drama one would expect from Nagoshi’s previous work. The game also starred Ma Dong-seok, the acclaimed actor you might recognise from films such as Train to Busan and Marvel’s Eternals.
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