DreadOut Remastered Collection announced for PS5 & Switch

[Zemekis]

Re-emerging from the early 2010's "indie horror" craze is the DreadOut Remastered Collection. I'm not sure who remembers it, but DreadOut was a sleeper hit of that era. Never quite reaching the heights of Amnesia or Slender, but still well-respected for being an actual game. The demo was quite popular and I recall playing through it several times. If you don't remember anything about it, think of Fatal Frame, White Day or Siren but with production values more akin to a Chilla's Art game. It's a lower-budget janky Southeast Asian (Indonesian) horror game. You control schoolgirl with a camera phone instead of a Camera Obscura.

 

 

The "collection" contains DreadOut & Keepers of the Dark which is a sort of expansion to the original game. It does not contain DreadOut 2, which recently (since 2020) saw digital releases for the PC, PS5, Xbox & Switch.

The Remastered collection is scheduled for release in 2024, both digitally & physically in Southeast Asia with English subtitles.

Release details from the publisher:

Spoiler

I know this genre doesn't fit too well with the JRPG-heavy conversation around here, but the news section needs some love! If nothing else, this game served as my inspiration to look up monsters/cryptids from other cultures that I would have never known about otherwise. I'm sure we're all familiar with Bigfoot, Aliens, Mothman and the like versus Japanese ghosts (pale, long black hair girls)...but I asked myself "What the heck is an Indonesian monster like?" after playing the demo. Turns out they are weirder than expected. After digging around on Google for a while, I think the Philippines take the cake for highest number of gross, wacky folklore monsters nobody has ever heard of.

Spoiler

I know this is Thai, but Indonesians have the same thing in their folklore (and in DreadOut). The concept of a woman's floating head + hanging guts as a monster is vile. No thanks. It's tough to even know what to call it, because at least 8 cultures/languages claim this thing. This movie poster was just too bizarre not to share.

If you remember DreadOut or if you have recommendations for any similar games, let me know!

[Koby]

I own DreadOut, DreadOut 2, and DreadOut: Keepers of The Dark on Steam, but I think I only played a bit of the first one and got distracted. Need to return to the series. I like games like Resident Evil and such along with jrpgs.

[Zemekis]

9 hours ago, Koby said:

Need to return to the series. I like games like Resident Evil and such along with jrpgs.

DreadOut isn't the best of the best, but it does put a unique spin on things that I enjoy. Especially during that era when there were literal thousands of nearly identical horror games. Perhaps this remaster will get me to revisit the series. They will serve as palatte cleansers between Trails games, lol. I try to sandwich smaller games in-between juggernauts.