New Year’s Wish List: Joel Couture
2015 is already looking like it’s going to be another great year for video games. Many wild and crazy projects got announced over the past few months, and it will be hard to keep up with them all as they begin to come out over the course of next year. Here are just a handful of the games I’m most excited for in 2015.
Red Hook Studios’ Darkest Dungeon should be bringing its madness-fueled dungeon crawling to Early Access in February, and I can’t wait. The turn-based combat is interesting, using a skill system that works based on where your character is in reference to the enemy’s position in 2D space. Planning your position is a big part of the game, but the various madness effects are the bigger draw. Characters can lose their minds in various ways, ignoring commands, refusing healing, or just spouting downright crazy things. Madness breeds more madness, though, and crazy characters eventually start to unhinge the other party members. If you’re not careful, it won’t be long before you’re carting around a handful of lunatics, so you’ll need to watch your mind as well as your body in the dangerous world of Darkest Dungeon.
Re-watching the trailer for Laura Shigihara’s Rakuen still leaves me shaken. Telling the story of a hospitalized boy, players must guide him through the fantasy world of his favorite story, helping him and his mother find their way in that place while changing the real world for the better. Focusing on narrative and puzzles, the boy’s journey will be filled with new friendships, frightening darkness, and a message on the connections we leave behind when we’re finally gone. With Shigihara’s incredible musical talents already tugging at the heartstrings from the trailer, I already have a sense that Rakuen will be one of the most powerful, emotional games of 2015.
Fear doesn’t always have to come from monsters; it can also come from being all alone at the bottom of the ocean, caught up in a sea of endless black while your oxygen dwindles. Honor Code’s Narcosis drops players, all by themselves, into serious trouble, playing as a diver who’s lost deep underwater. With Oculus Rift support, the game will let players really experience the loneliness and terror of being trapped hundreds of miles below the ocean’s surface, forcing them to wrestle with finite resources and the fragility of the suit that’s keeping them alive. After nearly drowning as a child, my own fear of water should make for an interesting playthrough as I struggle against the panic and mental exhaustion of facing that kind of threat. Promising a subtle, psychological tale along with terrifying solitude, Narcosis will be an interesting horror entry in 2015.
