Hunt ghosts with sound in Chasing Static, a creepy new horror game with a neat lo-fi aesthetic

Tracking anomalies
(Image credit: Headware Games)

Whether it's games like The Black Iris, Bleakshore, or the upcoming Compound Fracture, I can't get enough of horror games with crunchy PlayStation-inspired visuals. There's just something about that lo-fi aesthetic that makes it perfect for the genre, and Chasing Static makes excellent use of it.

Set in rural Wales, a setting you don't often see in videogames, the story concerns Chris Selwood, a man who seeks refuge from a storm in a remote roadside cafe, before things take a turn, inevitably, for the creepy.

I played a very short demo of the game, in which I visited the cafe after driving through a rainstorm, met a friendly local waitress, then watched in horror as she was attacked by some nightmarish beast with glowing eyes. There wasn't enough in the demo to get a feel for what the game actually is, or how it plays, but the atmosphere, visuals, and scene-setting are all top notch.

"Inspired by '80s sci-fi horror and contemporary surrealist cinema, Chasing Static delivers a unique take on the narrative adventure genre through new audio driven gameplay mechanics and non-linear exploration," reads the game's Steam page. "Explore the untouched wilderness of rural Wales as you uncover the forgotten remains of a mysterious facility and try to piece together what happened to the missing villagers of Hearth."

Developer Headware Games says Chasing Static will tell a self-contained two-hour story in a world you can explore at your leisure. But the thing I'm most intrigued by is the 'sonic exploration' system. "Audio driven gameplay mechanics have you hunting anomalies with an experimental Frequency Displacement Monitoring Device," reads the Steam page, which sounds like a unique take on the spooky walking sim.

No release date has been set for Chasing Static yet, but you can expect it at some point this year.

Andy Kelly

If it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Alien: Isolation, and anything with a good story.

Read more
A stylized drawing of a horned demon with a skull for a face and glowing eyes peering over a forest cabin.
Bloober Team’s new horror label just unveiled an isometric survival horror game straight out of a comic book: ‘Avoid the Horned Man at all costs’
A man turns away from an open window while monsters gather in the dark
Look Outside is a survival horror RPG where you absolutely should not look outside
Silent Hill f transmission trailer screenshots
'We've been keeping fans waiting for an awfully long time': We finally got to see more of Silent Hill f and boy, does it look great
Uplifted chimp Penn and cyber-rat Trip in the key art for Animal Use Protocol
Animal Use Protocol's dysfunctional chimp-rat alliance drags the Stasis series into a horrible new first-person era
Moroi trailer still
Romanian folklore, David Lynch, and heavy metal come together in a dark fantasy hack-and-slash action game 'with an even darker sense of humor'
A female astronaut suffers from a horrible alien growth on her face in Directive 8020
Directive 8020: A Dark Pictures Game launches John Carpenter's the Thing into space this October
Latest in Horror
The outlast trials setting
'You just have to make them think this world is real, and this world can hurt you': The Outlast Trials devs discuss a changing horror genre and an insatiable need for scares
Silent Hill f transmission trailer screenshots
Silent Hill f is no longer banned in Australia, but it still sounds pretty messed up
One of Repo's player characters, resembling a yellow pedal bin with googly eyes, encounters a skeletal, open mouthed face with glowing yellow eyes.
REPO dev says it wasn’t actually inspired by Lethal Company, and started as a singleplayer cleaning game: ‘It was nice, but far from what REPO is now’
Uplifted chimp Penn and cyber-rat Trip in the key art for Animal Use Protocol
Animal Use Protocol's dysfunctional chimp-rat alliance drags the Stasis series into a horrible new first-person era
A woman with short hair stands next to a pot plant, provocatively
GOG's version of Silent Hill 4 has been updated with missing content from the original console game
A man turns away from an open window while monsters gather in the dark
Look Outside is a survival horror RPG where you absolutely should not look outside
Latest in News
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April
Napster client circa 1999
Former music-pirating platform Napster to be reborn rather ironically as a metaverse for musicians to connect with their fans after $207 million deal
The snazzy red and black HyperX Cloud Alpha wireless headphones float in a teal void. The microphone is attached to the headset.
The best wireless gaming headset is now even better in the Amazon Big Spring Sale, boasting a more than $50 discount
A chip being held up in an Intel fab
Intel is reportedly 'working to finalize commitments from Nvidia' as a foundry partner, suggesting gaming potential for the 18A node