PHASE ZERO has been turning heads as one of the vital intriguing upcoming horror titles of the yr. Mixing psychological dread with grounded sci-fi realism, the sport explores what occurs when isolation, paranoia, and the unknown converge in a spot far faraway from human civilization.
To study extra in regards to the inventive imaginative and prescient and chilling ambiance behind the challenge, we sat down with Krzysztof Tracz (Artistic Path & Undertaking Lead), Katarzyna Amanda Hankiewicz (Artwork Director), and Iga Ewa Smoleńska (Narrative Designer) of SPINA Studio to debate the crew’s inspirations, design philosophy, and the way PHASE ZERO goals to push gamers into the sting of worry and fascination.
For Krzysztof Tracz, Artistic Path & Undertaking Lead
ROH: For PHASE ZERO’s tone, what was your unique imaginative and prescient for the sort of worry you wished to evoke in gamers?
PHASE ZERO is rather more in regards to the hostility of the surroundings than the worry of a particular monster. We’re probably not attempting to scare gamers within the conventional sense – it’s extra about making them really feel uneasy and uncomfortable, even after they cease taking part in. I consider one of the best sort of horror is the one which stays with you after you flip the sport off, when it begins to mix into your ideas and leak into on a regular basis life. That’s why the world of PHASE ZERO is kind of grounded. We would like the areas and conditions to really feel acquainted sufficient to be unsettling. If sure moments from our sport linger in your thoughts and hang-out you throughout unusual actions, which means we did our job proper.
ROH: What influenced the general inventive path of PHASE ZERO? Had been there any particular movies, video games, or real-world ideas that helped form its ambiance?
The primary affect really comes from a technical perspective. Since I used to be a child, I’ve been fascinated by the intelligent trick of pre-rendered backgrounds – how they made video games from that period look so reasonable and cinematic. However after I grew up and began working within the business, expertise had moved on a lot that this method was thought-about out of date. At some point I made a decision to problem myself and make a small challenge utilizing pre-rendered backgrounds for a sport jam devoted to ’90s-style video games, and the nice and cozy response from gamers to our sport jam demo ultimately led us to work on PHASE ZERO as a full challenge.
From the ambiance facet, PHASE ZERO is closely influenced by the Resident Evil sequence, particularly the concept from Resident Evil: Outbreak, the place unusual individuals are attempting to outlive extraordinary occasions. Wanting past video games, the challenge attracts clear inspiration from movies like The Factor and Annihilation, in addition to TV sequence resembling The Strolling Lifeless. I additionally love stop-motion animation, just like the one in TOOL’s Sober music video – that eerie aesthetic performed an enormous position in shaping the sport’s visible and emotional ambiance as effectively. As you possibly can see, PHASE ZERO is an amalgamation of many alternative media and artwork varieties.
ROH: As Undertaking Lead, how do you steadiness the crew’s creative ambitions with the technical and manufacturing realities of growing a horror sport?
We positioned a variety of extra restrictions on ourselves by selecting to construct the sport round pre-rendered backgrounds and a PlayStation 1 impressed retro aesthetics. That may sound limiting, however I see it as a wholesome steadiness between ambition and practicality. Restrictions assist us focus our creativity – they drive us to search out good, elegant methods to make a static surroundings really feel alive and interactive. As an alternative of preventing the technical limitations, we design with them, which retains our creative imaginative and prescient sturdy whereas guaranteeing the challenge stays achievable inside our sources.
ROH: Horror depends closely on pacing and stress — what methods or design philosophies guided your method to timing scares and emotional peaks?
The core concept behind this challenge is to create a cinematic expertise – one thing that feels directed as a lot because it’s performed. The fastened digital camera perspective helps loads with that, letting us borrow strategies straight from movie, like managed framing and pacing. The basic construction of the sport, with its tight, claustrophobic rooms, naturally creates a rhythm. We spend a variety of time ensuring every area feels distinct and memorable, which helps us form the sport’s circulation and emotional buildup. And relating to releasing stress, we like to combine it up – generally it’s a pointy scare, generally an intense second of motion, and generally it’s a little bit of humor at simply the appropriate time.
ROH: Many horror video games depend on soar scares or loud audio cues. How does PHASE ZERO differentiate itself when it comes to the way it builds and sustains dread?
It’s humorous – on the very starting, we determined to not depend on soar scares or loud audio stingers. However with a hard and fast digital camera perspective, each digital camera change already creates a sort of mini soar scare. There’s one thing about that type that naturally builds stress with out us forcing it.
The fastened digital camera brings a variety of refined horror instruments with it. Your discipline of view is restricted – not as a result of the room is darkish, however as a result of the digital camera merely gained’t allow you to see every thing. That makes even a well-lit room really feel uneasy. You begin constructing a psychological map of each area, which pulls you deeper into the world. The rooms are small and claustrophobic, partly to cut back the variety of digital camera cuts, nevertheless it additionally makes you are feeling trapped. And the low-detail, retro visible type leaves simply sufficient to the creativeness, which is the place many of the worry actually grows.
So as a substitute of preventing the restrictions of the basic type, we leaned into them. And the attention-grabbing half is that individuals taking part in the demo had been generally scared in moments we by no means designed to be scary – the stress simply appeared by itself.
For Katarzyna Amanda Hankiewicz, Artwork Director
ROH: For the artwork type in PHASE ZERO, what visible language did you determine to speak the sport’s themes?
PHASE ZERO is a love letter to the golden period of survival horror, and that in itself already dictated loads relating to visuals and elegance. What’s so attention-grabbing is that many stylistic selections from this period got here from the restrictions of {hardware} on the time. So one of many first issues I did was research these manufacturing processes and see the considering behind the artwork path selections. And I need to say, again then, there have been a variety of vibrant individuals developing with actually progressive and attention-grabbing options!
Coming again to PHASE ZERO itself, it was clear to us that we wished to purpose for a extra grounded setting – a small, industrial city, on a regular basis individuals, a spot everyone knows the way it appears, feels, and lives, despite the fact that we’d by no means have visited it. We do our greatest to replicate this in our environments and character designs.
Emotionally, the theme of entrapment performs an enormous position. Our heroes attempt to discover their manner out of the city whereas it’s turning into increasingly more uncomfortable round them – fastened cameras, the 4:3 facet ratio, claustrophobic corridors, a bizarre digital camera angle sometimes – push this theme additional. It’s all about making you are feeling strangled, trapped, wanting to interrupt out.
ROH: Are you able to stroll us via your means of designing the environments — significantly how you utilize lighting, coloration, and texture to bolster psychological stress?
From the onset of manufacturing, there was a sure line-up of locations we wished to indicate in our story. We additionally ready a chronological timeline of all of the areas and the way they seem within the sport one after the opposite. We then added references that captured the primary imaginative and prescient for every place. This allowed us to see how the visuals would change from chapter to chapter and help the general narrative. See the way it all flows.
This technique additionally works on a smaller scale, for every separate location. For instance, for individuals who performed the demo, each hospital flooring had a small temper board. It helps to maintain the place various, nevertheless it nonetheless has to really feel plausible as one constructing. The affected person or therapy rooms in real-life hospitals look fairly comparable, which could result in (by accident) complicated the participant. That’s once you begin taking part in with coloration, patterns, and completely different lighting situations. They’ll ship refined unconscious hints to gamers on the place they’re, in the event that they’ve been right here already, and by which path they need to head.
This isn’t most likely something new, however gentle can do a full 180-degree flip in how an area is perceived. Even smooth lights in hotter tones could give an phantasm of security – whereas dramatic, cool lightning that casts sharp shadows might be fairly anxiety-inducing. This data is kind of useful when adorning saverooms. And a bit of attention-grabbing trick I exploit – including a heat gentle makes meaty partitions extra seen and even gorier.
ROH: Had been there particular creative actions or visible references that impressed PHASE ZERO’s look — as an example, brutalist structure, analog horror, or surrealism?
Except for the plain one – the PSX-era video games, we seemed for inspiration in films and something popular culture associated from the 80s/90s/00s. Our reference board is stuffed with screenshots from Shining, Twin Peaks (so far as I do know most of us are David Lynch followers), previous tech, in addition to vogue. Whereas doing analysis for the hospital location, I rewatched the primary season of ER, Scrubs and the Black Jack OVA.
Liminal areas had been a recurring theme because the very starting. As I discussed earlier, entrapment was an emotion we wished to discover on this challenge, and we determined that liminal areas play very effectively with it. Empty public areas that often must be bustling with individuals have this unnerving high quality about them – and on high of this, you subconsciously hold asking your self “Ought to I actually be right here?”
Physique horror is a large a part of PHASE ZERO, for inspiration we checked out such masters of the unsettling as John Carpenter, David Cronenberg or Junji Ito – particularly the film The Factor. Checked out otherworlds from Silent Hill or Saya no Uta. I recognize it when one thing is ready to terrify me, after which I attempt to analyze it. Oftentimes, it’s not the gore itself that terrifies, however the darkness or acquainted shapes in between – one lets your mind fill within the blanks, the opposite one makes the horror extra relatable on a unconscious stage.
Typically, I feel it’s vital to immerse your self in what you’re doing and by no means restrict your self to only one medium or style or perhaps a time frame, when searching for inspiration. Krzysztof talked about Device’s Sober video, Iga dives deep into analysis, I really like visiting museums and galleries – even ended up seeing an exhibition by Chiharu Shiota, whose work has been in our reference board since without end! Once we spot RE references or a liminal area within the wild, we share them on our crew Discord channel. You by no means know what can encourage you, so hold your eyes open.
ROH: How carefully did you collaborate with the sound and narrative groups to make sure visible and emotional consistency throughout the sport?
We at SPINA are a somewhat tight-knit crew. We work with one another effectively and this additionally makes communication between us a lot simpler. In terms of sound, it often comes after we’ve got the visible tone set. It’s the remaining contact, the cherry on high that completes the ambiance. It’s a massively vital piece of the puzzle, as sound can actually amplify the emotional affect of the scene.
As an Artwork Director working with the individuals behind narration and stage design, we collaborate hand in hand. We feed off one another. It took us a while to develop this circulation. We needed to study to fastidiously plan every step, create a narrative for the block out, block out what is perfect for adorning, and enhance so it units the appropriate temper for the sound. Mounted Cameras play an enormous position on this – it’s vital to search out the appropriate angles within the block out stage, in fact, we keep versatile and generally let pleased accidents occur, however having the cameras set makes issues a lot simpler for the artwork division!
ROH: What was probably the most difficult visible component to get proper — a location, a creature, or maybe the way in which the sport’s world reacts to the participant?
Regardless of being one of the vital enjoyable and rewarding duties, designing our important heroes proved to be fairly a problem. Easy methods to painting character and an attention-grabbing design, whereas sustaining plausible low-poly fashions? You begin easy, and the character doesn’t stand out. You add extra, and it appears misplaced for such a sport – balancing the extent of element on this type is vital.
Then there’s gameplay and readability – you might want to make certain the heroes are seen in each scene, even when they’re away from the digital camera, it’s fairly darkish, or the place is cramped with many enemies. We analyzed so many elderly and newer low-poly character fashions as a information. Some issues we iterated again and again on, just like the distinction on textures (it helps obtain extra of a 3d impact!), or sooner or later we determined so as to add a small element to the primary hero’s sneakers (this elevated the complete determine’s visibility). At instances, it’s a variety of trial and error. Hopefully, we created characters that gamers can establish with and just like the look of.
For Iga Ewa Smoleńska, Narrative Designer
ROH: The title PHASE ZERO suggests each a starting and an experiment — are you able to share how that idea ties into the story’s central thriller or theme?
The ‘starting’ is an efficient trope, as the sport takes place in the course of the first hours of a mysterious illness that twists the our bodies and minds of the townsfolk of Flint Peak. The participant is aware of as little because the protagonists themselves – trapped on this harmful new actuality, and along with them, they should uncover what occurred on this small, remoted city. As they play and progress within the story, they may unravel details about what went down, in addition to observe what is occurring to the monsters roaming the snow-covered streets of Flint Peak. This additionally ties into the chosen title, however I gained’t go into element right here to not spoil something for these desirous to play.
ROH: Psychological and survival horror thrives on ambiguity and interpretation. How did you steadiness readability of narrative with the participant’s sense of confusion or unease?
We attempt to make every story beat clear and straightforward to know for the gamers, however relating to the interpretation of what they really imply (particularly for the heroes of PHASE ZERO), we deliberate our character arcs to provide you extra context as you progress additional within the sport. This provides us time to make the gamers query a few of the choices made by our protagonists and surprise in regards to the state of the world. Relaxation assured that we plan to reply every query we throw on the gamers, as PHASE ZERO wasn’t meant to be a complicated open-ended narrative from the start.
ROH: How do you method writing for survival horror with out counting on conventional tropes — resembling amnesia, haunted homes, or demonic possession?
Early on in growth, we made an inventory of what we wished the story to have and what we wished to keep away from. The tropes you talked about had been very excessive on our ‘don’ts’ checklist. As such, we deal with concepts extra grounded in actuality, avoiding ‘magical’ turns of occasions, turning extra in the direction of incredible science than the occult. Let’s say our roots lay extra on the facet of basic Resident Evil and fewer on the Silent Hill.
It’s nice to work with a transparent imaginative and prescient and themes, as when agreed upon early on, they will really information you thru the scenes and the scripts. A whole lot of questions are instantly answered when you realize you can’t attain into the magical depths of human creativeness and must deal with issues which are really out there in the actual world. Mundane issues are typically cheap and clear for the gamers, which additionally helps design.
ROH: What emotional response do you hope gamers take away when the credit roll — worry, introspection, catharsis, or one thing else fully?
Initially we’re very set on the participant understanding the story as an entire and our characters’ roles in it. We would like the particular person on the opposite finish of the gamepad to take a second to consider what simply occurred, why, and what which means for the world of PHASE ZERO. Consequently, they may, hopefully, have an introspection about what they’d do in a state of affairs like that, and give you a few ‘what if’ situations. The feelings these situations can depart the participant with might be very completely different and rely upon what sort of particular person is taking part in the sport – I can solely hope that the sport will make the gamers give it some thought even after the credit cease rolling.
And that’s all for the interview, of us! As PHASE ZERO nears its subsequent main growth milestone, it’s clear the crew at SPINA Studio is crafting extra than simply one other survival horror sport. By meticulous artwork path, human-centered storytelling, and a deal with psychological immersion, PHASE ZERO hopes to be a haunting descent into retro horror. You possibly can play the free demo on Steam, and sit up for the sport’s launch like the remainder of us!
