Tenebris Somnia, a retro survival horror game that uses live-action cutscenes, launched on October 16, New Blood Interactive announced in a post on Xbox Wire. Filmmaker Andrés Borghi and Saibot Studios developed the game, and New Blood published it. According to the post, it is available now on Xbox Series X|S and on PC through Xbox, and Xbox Play Anywhere covers both versions with a single purchase.
Players control Julia, a young woman who keeps dreaming that monsters are tearing her ex-boyfriend apart. She goes to his apartment to make sure he is all right and finds that the horror is real. New Blood describes a classic survival horror setup with limited resources, boss fights, puzzles and monsters, all built around hand-drawn pixel art.
The live-action scenes star Argentine actress Clara Kovacic as Julia. Borghi storyboarded and directed them, and Marcos Berta supervised the practical monster effects. According to New Blood, the crew filmed on real locations in Buenos Aires, including a 17th-century cathedral, and made silicone masks and prosthetics from molds of the performers’ faces. The publisher says the cutscenes are tied directly to gameplay, so players never know when one will start or end. A scene might cut straight into an enemy encounter.
The post says Borghi came up with the idea while streaming New Blood’s earlier horror game FAITH: The Unholy Trinity. He and Saibot Studios lead Tobías Rusjan built a demo and pitched it to New Blood. Production took almost four years.
New Blood also said that “absolutely no generative AI was used anywhere at any point in production.” According to the publisher, the art, animation, music, programming and localization were all done by people. The game is localized into English, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese. New Blood said it hopes to release a full making-of documentary now that the game is out. In the post, Borghi said: “I hope players will come to see the cutscenes, and stay to experience the story.”
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