Destructoid Checkpoint Special Edition #5 - The Horrors of Gamescom

By now we’ve covered most of what all the Halls in Koelnmesse had to show, from the business center and its amazing AAA projects to Hall 10 and its treasure trove of independent games and productions, but so far we’ve refrained from venturing into the deep end of the spectrum - horror.

Fractured Blooms in a Fractured World

And to be honest, I was surprised by just how scary some of these games were. Of course, the standout title here was definitely Fractured Blooms, a psychological horror as its devs describe it, which puts you in the shoes of a homely girl looking after her garden and yard. As you do your daily chores in a P.T.-like loop, things slowly but surely start to change, dependent heavily on how much sleep you got last night (yes, really).

The demo itself was rather brief and kicks things up from zero to 11 really quickly, all for the sake of showcasing the gameplay, but I found myself disturbed equally during those mundane parts since I always anticipated something was about to happen. Normal day-to-day chores turn into horrifying split-personality moments for the main character, things in the house start acting up, and the house itself splinters and combines with an otherworldly entity.

The farbic of reality itself starts tearing up, and it seems like the world is trying so hard to ruin your daily routine. It’s a horrifying experience overall, and not one that unfolds as a traditional creature feature where you’re just constantly running away from monsters. It’s definitely something different, and I’d even say it’s the closest to giving us those P.T. vibes that we never got.

Turns out scaring people isn’t easy

The devs I spoke with on the floor all had more or less the same thing to say: scaring folks just is not an easy thing. A lot of them are trying their best to find new ways to horrify an audience, and some are more successful at it than others. Standing out as a unique horror game is a real challenge, the devs said, and in a sea of similar or same-y games, being unique is the most sought-after virtue.

It’s also pretty difficult to achieve, leading to a lot of experimentation, which does not always land with audiences, but is nevertheless necessary to propagate the genre forward.

A good thing is that I could feel the passion and great vibes from all these devs, as all of them genuinely cared about their craft and wanted to see their games, whether now or in the future, achieve that difficult goal of scaring as many people as possible.

Two buttons are enough for horror

A cool game that I tried out was Unsealed: Vigil, a game that literally had two buttons - left click and the W key - as the core of its gameplay. You drove a wheelchair down corridors and dark rooms and had to use your flashlight to identify demons and ring your bell to get rid of them in time.

It was actually quite horrifying, even if the demo was made with a more casual audience in mind with the easy mode as default. The devs told me that they made the game in two weeks, just around 15 days before Gamescom itself, and that a lot yet remains to be implemented and refined.

The simplicity of the gameplay only needs player freedom to truly become a horrifying experience, as the core atmosphere and oppressiveness of the environment are fantastically good.

So many horror games, but not one was too similar

I played so many of these indie horrors in Hall 10 during the entirety of Aug. 29 and was genuinely surprised by how many of them actually stood out. While developers are struggling to achieve being unique and to carve out a place for themselves in the horror sphere, a lot of these titles were pretty rad on their own.

Deadly Rehearsal is a Southeast Asian horror game putting you in the shoes of a stage director’s assistant, helping him organize the first full staging of a mysterious and, presumably, cursed play. It’s very close to the King in Yellow stories from the late 19th century and follows a structure of ramping terror that is so recognizable of Southeast Asian horror films. It could do with some polishing, but the core structure really stood out to me.

A.A.U., made by two Serbian developers in their free time, combines SCP 5K and P.T. to create a looping military-horror shooter where realism, bodycams, blood, and gore all come together to form a cohesive whole. With Balkan aesthetics mixed in, from brutalist architecture to post-Communist enteriors, we get one of the better-looking horror games of the last decade.

It wasn’t all horror, though

I also got to try out a couple of easygoing indies, these being Ravenwood Academy, Age after Age, and Gloria Victis.

The first is a new adaptation of the well-known Wizardry 101 MMORPG, which turns that recognizable world and setting into a sort of detective investigative RPG, of course, like the original, meant for a younger or more casual audience. Solving puzzles and unraveling mysteries through a comprehensive and player-oriented clue and investigation system was genuinely fun, and I believe this will definitely stick the landing with a lot of casual-minded folks.

Gloria Victis, also published by Kingsile like the former, is another MMORPG, but this time more realistic, brutal, and akin to For Honor and Mount & Blade than anything else. I fought one of its developers in a totally fair competition and even won a real-life cup.

The game is very hardcore and realistic, simulating a proper medieval world and arenas, and while it wasn’t my cup of tea, I also believe it will fill in the gap left by the death of this sort of genre since the early 2010s.

Lastly, Age after Age left a significant impression on me as a sort of natural evolution of Banished and Anno that neither of those two series got to fulfill. It has comprehensive age progression, city building, and survival systems in place that help it separate itself from the rest of the genre. Supporting scientists during your run, for example, takes you to an age of steampunk and high tech within a Victorian world, and so your decisions during gameplay can significantly alter where you end up going, which isn’t something I’ve seen yet in this kind of game.

The end of Gamescom

We’re now at the very end of Gamescom 2026. We’ve covered it all - AAA, indies, horror, and (almost) the culture of gaming. While the newsletters aren’t going anywhere, you can expect the final Special Edition to drop tomorrow at around the same time as today.

We’ve had a blast visiting Cologne and playing so many amazing games, but now is the time to give you comprehensive and deep, insightful interviews and previews of various games, which the newsletter format doesn’t really let me do.

Have a wonderful rest of your day, Destructoid!