Remember that Seinfeld horror game designed in Dreams from about a year ago? No? Well, it's back regardless, and it's looking weirder than ever.
When I first covered Sinfeld Remastered (then called Sinfeld Chronicles), it was a pretty straightforward Seinfeld horror game, if there ever could be such a thing. You strolled around familiar locations like Jerry and Kramer's apartments and occasionally got startled by a possessed doll. At the time, RareBird Games promised something bigger was in development, and today it delivered on that promise.
Sinfeld has evolved, mutated even, into an entirely different animal. In the first minute of the above trailer, you see protagonist Donathan wandering around what looks like a post-apocalyptic version of Jerry Seinfeld's New York neighborhood before turning around and revealing that he's got major baby-face. "Kept you waiting, huh?" Don asks while cracking a decidedly unfriendly grin. What have I gotten myself into?
I'm really, really unsure of what's going on. The official synopsis says Don is just Seinfeld's adoptive son (who used to be his nephew) who's been abandoned in New York and needs a place to crash, but the trailer shows him fighting off monsters and downing helicopters, so clearly there's something the developers aren't telling us about this guy. The YouTube desciption does mention an "endless loop of nightmares," but that hardly clears anything up.
There are also references to Spider-Man, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Metal Gear Solid. RareBird teased a "New York-themed" game last year, but now it seems the sky's the limit on Sinfeld's crossover potential.
Actually, I'd say the sky's the limit on this game in general. Anything can happen. Ray Romano but with zebra stripes could appear as the final boss and I wouldn't be surprised at this point. Sinfeld Remastered is chaotic as hell, and it doesn't even care that it's not really a Seinfeld horror game anymore at all. In fact, RareBird now describes Sinfeld Remastered simply as "an action horror comedy parody featuring various gameplay styles inspired by Resident Evil, Silent Hills, and P.T."
RareBird told me that development shifted from Dreams over to the Unreal engine for a variety of reasons, including the more detailed building tools and shorter development time. There still isn't a concrete release date, but the studio told AV Club that it plans to launch Sinfeld Remastered on PS5 and PC in October.
As soon as we learned about Sinfeld last year, we had to include it on our list of the best Dreams levels to play on PS4.
