This Silent Hill- and Resident Evil-inspired indie horror game's "secret ingredient" is live-action cinematics

It is my great privilege at the dawn of this spooky season to tell you about a new, weird, and wonderful indie horror game inspired by classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Tenebris Somnia is an upcoming spookfest with a nightmare-inducing monster that comes to life in live-action cinematics.

Even without the live-action component, Tenebris Somnia is incredibly compelling as a big fan of old-school horror, particularly Clock Tower. The demo currently available via Steam is a nicely polished sample in which you play as a recently heartbroken person returning their ex-partner's apartment keys only to discover something's terribly amiss. There's a persistent tension and dread in piecing together the shards of this bloody, cryptic, messed-up nightmare, and my heart pounded throughout the final confrontation.

Developers Andrés Borghi and Tobías Rusjan say Tenebris Somnia's "secret ingredient" is its cinematics, and I can attest that the one cutscene in the demo is genuinely terrifying and surprisingly integrates pretty seamlessly into the gameplay. That can be attributed to cinematic production, convincing actors, and a horrible creature that's equally frightening in live-action and gameplay sequences.

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There's no release date for Tenebris Somnia quite yet, but I highly encourage you to download the demo and give it a go. Aside from some very minor typos here and there, there's virtually zero jank, and if you get nothing else from it, the novelty of an 8-bit horror game with creepy live-action scenes warrants the download alone. It even has controller support! Turn off the lights, light a pumpkin spice candle, and steep yourself in the retro Halloween vibes.

Afterward, check out the best horror games to play during this exact season.

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.