Sci-fi is one of the lesser-sung subgenres in horror games, at least in comparison to the wealth of zombie-infested titles out there. These numbers will be going up in 2023, however, when some little grey men come to town.
Refugium Games’ trailer for upcoming survival horror game Greyhill Incident depicts early 90s America in the throes of an alien invasion, removing the ‘extra’ from extraterrestrial by setting the scene here on earth.
It will have to compete with reboots of some of the best horror games, with Resident Evil 4 slated for release in March 2023. But if the Greyhill Incident trailer is anything to go on, we should gear up for an entirely unique experience in Refugium’s debut title.
Beam me up
You play as Ryan Baker, and according to the Greyhill Incident’s Steam page, he’s just an ordinary guy in the early 90s USA. Whilst others dredge through the conspiracy theories espoused by panic-stricken media outlets in the post-cold war era, Ryan quickly realizes that he and his neighbors in Greyhill are at the center of a much bigger, much deadlier lie than anyone had imagined.
“Equipped with a baseball bat and a few bullets in his revolver, the story takes you across the atmospheric neighborhood of Greyhill – which is invaded by UFOs & Grey Aliens,” reads the synopsis.
Greyhill Incident, which will be coming to both PC and console players, seems to feature a lot of logic puzzles. You’ll be expected to scrounge for items and solve them if you want to reunite with your neighbors to fight for survival amidst the aliens’ invasion of your once-quiet town.
The aliens in question are curious little grey men. Little is the operative word here; pair their diminutive height with those stereotypical almond-shaped eyes and slits for nostrils, and one on its own actually looks rather comical. It’s when they start approaching in droves that the dread will really set in.
The trailer doesn’t show many instances of combat as much as it does incapacitating and then fleeing from these grey-skinned visitors. It could be that Greyhill Incident features an element of defenselessness, using hiding mechanics rather than all-out gunplay as seen in the likes of the Amnesia games (though this might be changing in Amnesia: The Bunker, where the protagonist will be armed with a gun).
2023 is a year that already seems stacked when it comes to survival horror, so Greyhill Incident won’t be alone. With the Dead Space remake and Killer Klowns From Outer Space also ticking the sci-fi boxes, we can’t wait to see how Refugium’s maiden voyage compares to the items already on our wishlists.
