PS2-inspired psychological horror Hollowbody releases next month

Headware Games has announced that their anticipated PS2-style horror game Hollowbody will release on PC September 12.

Hollowbody has you play as a woman who crashlands into an exclusion zone set around and abandoned British city. She’s looking for someone there, but finding them suddenly isn’t her biggest problem. There are both monsters and puzzles about, and safety is beyond the wall.

The aesthetic and framework are based on ‘00s horror games. The best horror games. While much of the indie horror scene has focused on PS1-style, ‘90s horror was a bit goofy. When we got to the ‘00s, we seemed to hit a sweet spot of hardware horsepower and team sizes. We got games like Silent Hill 2, Fatal Frame, and Rule of Rose. The gameplay could sometimes be stiff, and the combat (especially in those games I just named) was often garbage, but they were invariably interesting.

What I’m saying is that there’s a diminished focus on combat and more on atmosphere and puzzle-solving. There’s also a mix of dynamic and fixed camera angles. It definitely looks the part.

I’ve had my eye on Hollowbody for a while. I had the demo installed since a Steam Next Fest and only uninstalled it in an ongoing struggle to manage the shrinking free territory on my hard drive. So, I didn’t actually play the demo since I thought I’d wait until the full release. That would have made this article easier to write since I’d have more intimate familiarity with the game. I try my best.

Hollowbody releases for PC on September 12, 2024.