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Spooky horror Blair Witch was revealed at E3, and is being handled by Layers of Fear and Observer developer Bloober Team, so they have pedigree in creating scary games. However, the developer has also revealed that it's taking inspiration from a much less scary game set in a forest, in Firewatch.
Speaking in an extensive interview to Eurogamer, writer Basia Kciuk said they looked at a fair few games that featured walking in a forest, saying 'Every game that features walking in a forest is a great inspiration. There are not so many high profile games about forests.' Of course, the obvious example would be Slender Man, but Kciuk said that 'although Slender Man was great for a moment, it's hard to draw inspiration.'
Instead, they ended up looking at Campo Santo's Firewatch, saying 'One we really liked, although it's not a horror game, was Firewatch. It was a great adventure in a forest while being, technically, alone – you can talk with another person but otherwise you are alone out there.' Kcuick elaborated; 'Although it was not scary, it was more of a mystery, it was great to look at the mechanisms, to look at how the story unfolds, the pacing.'
Of course, there were still plenty of other horror games for the team to draw on, with team developer Maciej GÅ‚omb chiming in: 'We were looking at Outlast, too, Silent Hills. We were also trying to capture this unique feeling of playing with the camcorder, which is what Outlast does really well. Obviously we also got inspiration from movies like Blair Witch!'
Blair Witch is currently scheduled for release on Xbox One and PC on August 30.
