Sam Barlow’s studio Half Mermaid, the developer of Her Story, Telling Lies, and Immortality—one of highest-reviewed games of 2022—are teasing a pair of mysterious new projects on Steam called, mysteriously, Project C and Project D.
The newly-arrived Steam pages for both new games are heavily redacted. The description for Project C opens with a biblical quote—“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”—and then teases “the new cinematic” something that promises something “for the first time ever in a videogame.”
Project D, on the other hand, is a survival horror something—game, perhaps—whose description includes the words “1983,” “nurse,” “nightmare,” and the ever-useful “be careful.” Oh, and “something bad,” in case there was any question on that front.
Project C, with its emphasis on “cinematic” sounds like what we’d expect from Barlow and Half Mermaid, whose previous projects are FMV mystery-thrillers. Immortality, the studio’s most recent release, is literally about a film star who made three movies, none of them released, before disappearing—again, mysteriously.
Project D may be more of a departure, though. Tags on the Steam page include “thriller” and “story rich,” but also clearly denote the game as a third-person survival-horror joint, something Half Mermaid hasn’t previously taken on. SteamDB actually lists Project D as Doors, which is not especially insightful: The Steam description makes two references to “some doors,” and one of the images currently on the page is of a door, with an ominous red light shining through it.
Speaking of those teaser images, they’re definitely evocative but not particularly informative:
Project C
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Project D
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But this is how Barlow rolls. In 2020 he teased Immortality with a code name—Project Ambrosio—and a heavily-redacted Steam page that included weird images and a quick, glitchy video clip. Intriguing but not especially useful, although given Barlow’s history of making engaging, thought-provoking games, it’s easily enough to capture our interest.
At this point, there’s nothing else to go on aside from whatever can be sussed out of the teaser videos: “Shots fired,” a clip of Nixon (I think?) saying, “We are Americans,” whatever that sound is at the end of the Project C teaser, and probably some bits I’ve overlooked. For those who want to dive deep into theorizing, Nixon uttered those words more than once, but one notable instance (via Wikiquote) was in 1970 when he paid tribute to Democratic senator Henry Jackson. (Nixon was a Republican.)
“When the great issues of the defense of America are involved—the security of America, the fate of our men who are fighting for America abroad—when the issues of peace and freedom are involved, when these issues are involved, we are not Democrats; we are not Republicans; we are Americans.”
I have no idea what the connection might be, but Jackson died in 1983, the year that figures prominently in the Project D teaser. Make of it what you will.
Barlow himself has said nothing about his new things except that the team was trying to “sneakily” release the teasers, but “the internet notices quick!”
Naturally, given how mysterious it all is, there’s not even a hint of a release date for either new game at this point. I’ve reached out to Half Mermaid for more information on both these new projects, which frankly I don’t think will be forthcoming, but you don’t know until you ask. We’ll keep you posted.
www.pcgamer.com