Luto is a first-person psychological horror game about pain, loss, insecurity, and what happens to a person when he can't even leave his own home. It's set to come out later this year, and we got our first look at its disturbingly creepy world in a new trailer that appeared in today's Future Games Show.
The Steam page for Luto doesn't go into great detail about what the game has in store. It promises a "dynamic narrative environment" with "environmental and sensory horror," depictions of anxiety and depression, and an exploration of different types of phobias, which sure sounds like a good time. The ultimate goal is to escape your house—literally, just to get outside—a journey that "will lead you through a series of paths that will challenge your senses."
Watching the trailer, though, I think that keeping things vague is the smart way to go. To put it bluntly, Luto looks messed up: There are plenty of familiar horror-game tropes in view, like dark hallways, messages scrawled on walls, doors that suddenly fly open, and—of course—the world's worst flashlight, but there are hints of worse things, too. As the narration says, "The worst part about Hell is not the flames, it's the hopelessness." Family photos, floating toys, stickers on the television, labelled boxes: Memories look to be the theme here, and there is no greater, more effective trap in the world than memory.
All of that is conjecture, of course—we'll have to wait a while to find out what Luto really has going on. (And what the title means, too.) Luto is currently slated to launch on Steam later this year.
