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On the verge of turning into some of the bone dust that no doubt fills the cracks of its derelict hospital walls, the once Nintendo DS exclusive Dementium: The Ward is alive again, wriggling up Steam's top 15 trending chart for horror games like one half of a newly dissected worm.
Indie developer Atooi – whose owner Jools Watsham once co-founded Renegade Kid, Dementium's original developer – released the remastered port on October 27, subjecting us to more Silent Hill paranoia and further easing Dementium's shackles to obscurity; its remaster was first released on Nintendo Switch in 2023.
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Dementium: The Ward is a strange artifact, so I'm not surprised it would will coincidences like that into existence. Watsham once explained on Twitter that the psychological horror game was initially pitched to Konami in 2007 "as something that could have become a Silent Hill DS game," but the developer turned Renegade Kid down.
"They said they wouldn't let a 'team like us' handle the Silent Hill property," Watsham continued. But the thrust of Silent Hill's aching guilt can't be contained by a little rejection. Ultimately, Dementium's grimy medical drama about an amnesiac trapped in a hospital gained cult status as one of the DS' few horror games creepier than Luigi's Mansion – with sutured ghouls and gray waves of shame.
The game's remastered version is modest – mainly, it smooths controls and supports 4K resolution, though it offers a 240P retro CRT look, too, if you want to deny reality. Really, it seems you're getting the authentic 2007 horror experience here, which is a valuable thing.
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