During Summer Game Fest, Blumhouse Productions founders Jason Blum and Amy Israel announced their plan to venture into the video game sphere with Blumhouse Games. With the announcement of their new game studio, they announced six new games players could expect to experience in the upcoming year. During our few days at Summer Game Fest, we got our hands on their first title, Fear the Spotlight.

Fear the Spotlight comes from Cozy Game Pals, an indie dev made up of a Nickelodeon art director and a game developer who has worked on such titles as The Last of Us and Journey. Fear the Spotlight follows Vivian and her friend Amy as they try to piece together the mystery of a fire that broke out and killed a lot of kids at their high school many years ago. One night, Vivian and Amy break into the school and hold a seance in hopes of contacting the spirits of those lost that day, but they end up contacting something else and are both plunged into a world of darkness and monsters.

Fear the Spotlight feels very familiar in that its art style is a homage to the PS1 era of graphics and its story is also a nod to classic ’90s horror films. Much of the gameplay revolves around solving puzzles and stealth. The game is more narrative-focused and really emphasizes the atmosphere when things start to get spooky. The in-game audio can be very immersive when playing with headphones on. Walking through the school alone at night you can hear that it is raining outside. It’s the perfect time to bust out the Ouija and hold a seance. What could possibly go wrong?

While we didn’t get a lot of time with Fear the Spotlight, it was more than enough to get an idea of what is to come once it is fully released. We’ve already seen how successful indie devs like Puppet Combo and Chilla’s Art have been with similarly styled games. There is a huge audience of players who enjoy retro-styled horror games like this and I think they will thoroughly enjoy Fear the Spotlight when it releases on September 15th later this year.