Bloober's next-gen sci-fi horror remaster Observer: System Redux gets first trailer
New visuals! More story! Gameplay enhancements!
Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team has been sporadically teasing a return to its excellent sci-fi horror adventure Observer of the last few months, recently revealing the project to be called Observer: System Redux. And now it's official; as the name implied, it's a next-gen remaster of the 2017 original, and there's a new trailer showing off its spruced-up new looks.
As a quick refresher, the original Observer offered up a cyberpunk slice of dystopian sci-fi, melding murder mystery and surreal horror into a grimily appealing whole.
Unfolding in a future version of Kraków, Poland - more specifically, within a single, extremely run-down apartment building populated by some very odd tenants - Observer is part methodically paced investigation adventure, and part breathless plunge into hallucinatory nightmare, as players, in the role of Observer detective Daniel Lazarski (voiced by the late Rutger Hauer), hop into the heads of witnesses in an attempt to track down their estranged son.
According to Bloober, Observer: System Redux will feature revamped visuals, as you'd expect from a next-gen makeover, but, more interestingly, gameplay enhancements and new story elements - some of which are teased in the reveal trailer above - are promised too. As enjoyable as the wonderfully atmospheric original was, it undoubtedly had its rough spots, so a few nips and tucks on the gameplay front would definitely be welcome.
Bloober says Observer: System Redux will be heading to "next-gen consoles", which it seems reasonable to interpret as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X (there's no explicit mention of a PC version, so we'll need to wait and see on that front), in "holiday 2020".