Last year, Feardemic put together Fear Fest, a celebration of horror games. This year, Fear Fest returns bigger and scarier than before. The event will launch the first-ever Horror Game Awards. Presented by Feardemic in partnership with IGN, the coming festival will occur over two nights in September.
Much like last year’s event, the first night of the festival will showcase upcoming horror games. This includes everything from major titles to indie games. Occurring on September 6th, various content creators will showcase these games “in gruesome detail.”
However, the second night will offer something new. Feardemic and IGN will present the first-ever Horror Game Awards. Broadcast live (or undead?) from the most haunted theater in Krakow, “the European capital of horror,” the show will highlight the best horror games of 2022. Tune in on IGN’s YouTube or Twitch on September 7th to watch the winners. And the trophy? No mere golden man, thank you very much. Winners will receive a golden bat. Take that, Oscars.
The Scariest Games of 2022
Last year saw a wide variety of horror games arrive on the spooky scene. As a fan of indie horror, and all kinds of horror, I recommend catching up on the games from the past year. Why? Winners of the bat-tastic trophy will gets chosen by fans this summer. In July, Feardemic will open the website for vote for their favorite horror games in a whopping 15 categories.
In a press release, Feardemic CEO Scott Millard discussed the excitement around the expansion to a two-night festival for this year:
“We created this event in 2022 as a tribute to our horror community, and it turned out to be a huge success. We were amazed by the enthusiasm and support from the developers, content creators, and fans. This year we wanted to make this event even better and more valuable for horror fans, so we decided to have two nights of horror: one to whet our appetites for the games coming soon and one to celebrate the games of the past year.”
Wojciech Piejko, Game Director at Bloober Team, based in Krakow, focused on the spooky significance of the city. “This city likes horror. We want its home here,” said Piejko. “We are happy to invite the most brilliant minds of horror to Krakow for the Horror Game Awards’ gala later this year.’’
Currently, Bloober Team has Layers of Fear releasing next month, followed by the much anticipated Silent Hill 2 sometime down the foggy road of time. In the meanwhile, we have plenty of games from this past year to celebrate, in 15 categories no less.
Horror Game Awards: Putting the Gory in Category
To throw in my own two cents, I do wonder how these categories will break down. Will it be by horror subgenre or genre of game? However it gets done, I’m excited. 2022 admittedly didn’t have many horror games that I absolutely adored, but I did have a solid amount of spooky fun with The Quarry and Evil Dead: The Game. Still, I’d love to hear what other horror fans enjoyed from last year.