One of the big key terms in the video game industry right now is “procedurally generated.” Many roguelikes and other games have given us various procedurally generated worlds, but now a game offers a procedurally generated narrative.
The Church in the Darkness is an action-adventure/stealth game about a man infiltrating a cult in the 1970s to save his nephew. The interesting thing is that every time you replay the game, the cult’s motivations, ideologies, and attitudes will be different, so you’re effectively infiltrating a different cult every time you play. As you infiltrate the cult in search of your nephew, you’ll find documents, hear community-wide announcements, and witness activities that will inform you of how exactly the cult functions. Given this information, you’ll eventually have to decide if this cult is dangerous and unsafe for your nephew to stay in, or if it is just a bunch of people peacefully expressing their own beliefs. Your nephew may also have different opinions on the cult depending on your playthrough – sometimes he’ll want to escape, other times he’ll want to stay. There are several different endings depending on the choices you make in the game.
Publisher Fellow Traveller recently announced that The Church in the Darkness will be released on August 2 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can watch the game’s new trailer below.
