Becrowned is the manifestation of fans’ love for old-school horror

Classic survival horror has seen a resurgence in recent years, aiming to capture the essence of the old style of gameplay made popular in the late 90’s and early 2000’s through titles such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

More than ever, we’ve seen authentic new takes on this format crawling from the grave, with games like Tormented Souls, Signalis, Crow Country and most recently Hollowbody, crafting dreary atmospheres within grungy, unforgiving worlds.

This same DNA is wrought throughout Becrowned, a new psychological horror game from the team at 13th Street Studio, founded by its lead developer, Earnest Anpilov.

“We are a small indie studio, and we are making the game of our dreams,” said Anpilov in an email interview.

“We’ve been developing the game for several years in our free time, which sometimes isn’t enough to fully commit to the project. It’s a hard and lengthy process.”

First conceived in 2021, Anpilov began working on Becrowned on his own, introducing more people to the team as the project took shape.

“The best part of development is interacting with the team. Each of us is passionate about this project.” 

The game features classic survival horror gameplay, including clunky combat, constrained camera movement and, of course, traditional tank controls – although a more modern control scheme is also available.

But most importantly, Becrowned is faithful to the genre in its atmosphere, with a haunting soundscape that compliments the stylistically antiquated visuals.

“Thanks to a special rendering style, the graphics have a classic PS1 – PS2 aesthetic while still incorporating modern technological advancements,” said Anpilov.

A demo is available on Steam as of Sept. 27, taking place during a chapter from the middle of the main game in which the protagonist, Richard, finds himself trapped in the run-down Karpenter Asylum.

This mental hospital previously treated patients with psychosis and other illnesses, including Richard’s father, Clint, who suffered from severe C-PTSD upon returning home from military duty. The further Richard delves, the more details he uncovers on unethical experiments run on the patients, as well as his own family’s history and trauma.

As players step forth into the dilapidated halls of the abandoned facility, they are greeted by the eerie soundtrack that creates a sense of discomforting calm, reminiscent of the early Silent Hill games; a tranquility that could be disturbed at the drop of a hat.

“We are heavily inspired by old-school survival horror games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Alone in the Dark,” said Anpilov.

“We also draw inspiration from old horror films, and our writer is a huge fan of Lovecraft and similar literature.”

Amid the bizarre puzzles and punishing difficulty, there are a number of thoughtfully placed scares and tense set piece sequences that make your skin crawl as you escape enemy pursuit.

Resources are extremely limited but tightly balanced, keeping even the most careful player under tension to scrape up enough ammo and health pickups between each of the conventionally janky enemy encounters.

However, not all of the demo’s jank is quite so intentional or charming. Fights with enemies are unbalanced, as the attack patterns of close-combat foes are easy to exploit, while ranged enemies are instead rather difficult to avoid and can wipe out a full health status in only a couple of hits.

In addition, the demo still has a few bugs to iron out, ranging from small UI errors, to loading glitches that can soft-lock your save file.

But all of these issues are easily excusable from a demo version, especially from such a small indie game developer.

“There are various challenges, ranging from the technical difficulties of implementing certain mechanics we want in the game, to the simple lack of resources,” explains Anpilov. 

With over an hour of gameplay, the demo provides a surprisingly succinct and contained story, but Anpoliv expressed that “this is just one of many locations.”

“Becrowned will feature a dark fantasy setting with the ruins of majestic castles, industrial horror with concrete jungles, and classic Lovecraftian horror with sea monsters. All of this is connected by a grand narrative,” said Anpilov.

“This year, we all got together to film video material for in-game live-action content. It was amazing! We had very little time for the shoot, and each of us worked perfectly as part of a big, well-oiled machine.”

Becrowned is targeting a release on Windows and macOS, with full Steam Deck optimization. The team hopes to be able to bring the game to Nintendo Switch in the future as well.