Oh, the 70s. When everyone was wearing bell bottoms and founding cults off of American soul. The Church in the Darkness charges you with infiltrating just such a cult through a variety of stealthy means.
There aren’t a ton of details yet, so I’ll just let relate the developer’s pitch. “In the late 1970s, the charismatic Isaac and Rebecca Walker lead the Collective Justice Mission. Labeled radicals and feeling persecuted by the US government, they relocate their followers to the one place they believe they can create a socialist utopia: the jungles of South America. There they build Freedom Town. But relatives left behind in the US become worried: what exactly is going on at this compound in the jungle?” Isaac and Rebecca are voiced Ellen McClain and John Patrick Lowrie, who have provided tons of voice work for Valve. You’ll recognize Ellen in particular as the voice of GLaDOS, and I can think of no more terrifying a cult leader than that.
“The Church in the Darkness combines unique narrative with tight top-down action-infiltration gameplay in an open-ended environment. As Vic, an ex-law enforcement officer, you travel to South America to get into Freedom Town and check on your nephew, Alex. Play how you want - you can avoid detection completely, take on the guards using non-lethal methods, or kill anyone who gets in your way. But you’ll have to live with the consequences of those choices.”
The game promises that the experience will be different every time thanks to a shifting narrative and constantly changing set of allegiances and alliances. The concepts are fascinating both in terms of setting and game mechanics, and the developer, Richard Rouse III, has pedigree as the creative lead and writer on the cult action-horror title, the Suffering.
Like a future Emperor, I’ll be watching the Church in the Darkness with great interest. It’s due out on PS4, Xbox One, and PC early in 2017.
