Psychological horror story and adventure game The Long Reach has an official date for when it can begin tormenting our nightmares, publisher Merge Games announced today. The debut game from Ukrainian mini-dev studio Painted Black Games is set for cross-platform release this upcoming March.
The Long Reach is billed as a modern psychological thriller with science fiction trappings, that references classic adventure games in both art style and gameplay sensibility. Influenced by movies such as Lone Survivor and The Cave, the story is intended to be unsettling, not for the uniqueness of the location, but instead for the familiarity that it conveys. It’s not supposed to be a story that happens somewhere else, it’s intended to be a story that could happen right around the corner from where you buy your groceries.
Based on the bulleted list of game features sent out by PR, the devs have a pretty good sense of humor. Judge for yourself:
- The Long Reach is a horror-thriller hell bent on screwing with your perception of things.
- The game misuses stunning pixel art to create gruesome and unsettling images.
- You’ll be playing as Calvin throughout the game – this is an example of the lies and deception that we have in store for you.
- You won’t be forced to figure everything out. Escape if you wish, in fact we encourage you to run for your life!
- Solve puzzles that require thinking outside the box. The box provided by our publisher was never used during the development.
- You’ll be able to talk with plenty of characters. In fact, you’ll have a chance to pitch in every five lines or so.
- A classic adventure game inventory filled with keys and weird stuff (note: no Elvish swords glowing faintly blue when evil is close in this game).
- Original atmospheric and haunting soundtrack. The composer’s not right in the head, he brought weird stuff home to use in the soundtrack. We’re all concerned for his cat.
The Long Reach is slated for a March 14th, 2018 release across Sony’s PlayStation®4 and PS Vita; Microsoft’s Xbox One family of consoles, the Nintendo Switch, and PCs via Steam. A boxed, signature edition will be available for the PS4 and Vita editions.
