The Church in the Darkness is a top-down game of stealth, deception, and infiltration set in a 1970s religious cult located in a South American jungle. It sounds very Jonestown-like, but it may not be quite so apocalyptic, and figuring out the truth of things as you attempt to find (and perhaps rescue) your nephew is a big part of the game.
The story and characters change with every playthrough, so investigation is paramount, unless you want to risk murdering innocent people for no better reason than convenience. It's been a few years since we last looked at it, but the launch day now looms: Developer Paranoid Productions announced today that it will be released on Steam on August 2.
"I know we've kept you waiting a really long time for this game and we appreciate your patience sticking around for our lengthy development. In that time, we've added lots of features after rounds of playtesting," designer Richard Rouse III wrote.
"For a few examples, on the narrative side, we brought in a conversation system and put extra care into refining our endings. Or the gameplay side, we refined our difficulty levels and implemented a system to unlock additional content for each successive run through the game."
If the voices in the trailer have a familiar ring to them, it's likely because they're provided by Ellen McClain, the voice of GlaDOS and Half-Life 2's Overwatch, and John Patrick Lowrie, who's appeared in multiple Valve games but is likely best known as Team Fortress 2's Sniper. They portray Rebecca and Isaac Walker, the leaders of the Collective Justice Mission, who relocated their cult—or church—to South America after being labeled as radicals by the US government. Their presence and motives will be communicated by the Freedom Town PA system, through which they'll share their dogma, beliefs, and other pronouncements.
The Church in the Darkness will normally go for $20 on Steam but will be available for 20 percent off—$16—during the first week of launch. Find out more at paranoidproductions.com.
