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News
By Tom Goulter published 16 August 2011

Lovecraftian sandbox horror is 2-3 years off yet

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Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro, whose recently-cancelled At The Mountains of Madness movie was to be an adaptation of a story by HP Lovecraft, now has another outlet for his passion regarding the pioneering horror writer. The director's first video game, inSANE, is still 2-3 years off, but the director promises the stamp of his beloved Lovecraft will be felt strongly in the title: %26ldquo;It's Lovecraftian %26ndash; it's really weird, but it's Lovecraftian in a very sick way, which I like.%26rdquo; Del Toro is working with THQ subsidiary Volition on the title, which he says requires a steep learning curve: %26ldquo;you have to be respectful of the medium.%26rdquo;


Above: Guy Davis' B.P.R.D. put a distinctive spin on Hellboy's signature monsters

Like Volition's Red Faction and Saint's Row titles, inSANE will be a sandbox action title. Del Toro calls it %26ldquo;truly, truly entertaining: full of action, but also a very shocking game.%26rdquo; While developers love to promise %26ldquo;shocks%26rdquo; then deliver stale retreads of gimmicks that would be laughed off a contemporary movie screen, Del Toro's experience in the latter medium may suggest an exception to this trend: weeks of brainstorming on the game's story has been followed by creature design with Guy Davis, artist on the Hellboy splinter comic B.P.R.D. Del Toro calls Davis %26ldquo;one of the best monster designers alive right now,%26rdquo; saying the game's monsters %26ldquo;are obscenely fun and unique. You haven't seen them ever.%26rdquo;

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inSANE is slated for a 2013 release, which still gives the risky title plenty of time to gestate while Del Toro cultivates his %26ldquo;really, really modest learning approach.%26rdquo; It may seem like a project just waiting to fall by the wayside, but remember that the last time games made a concerted effort to inject a new IP with Lovecraftian weirdness, the result %26ndash; Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem %26ndash; turned out some of the most inventive shocks the medium's seen yet. Here's hoping Del Toro and Volition can come up with something similarly inventive.

Aug 15, 2011

inSANE is slated for a 2013 release, which still gives the risky title plenty of time to gestate while Del Toro cultivates his %26ldquo;really, really modest learning approach.%26rdquo; It may seem like a project just waiting to fall by the wayside, but remember that the last time games made a concerted effort to inject a new IP with Lovecraftian weirdness, the result %26ndash; Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem %26ndash; turned out some of the most inventive shocks the medium's seen yet. Here's hoping Del Toro and Volition can come up with something similarly inventive.

Aug 15, 2011

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