Her Story and Telling Lies dev's "investigative horror" Immortality gets first proper reveal
Coming to PC and Xbox Series X/S this summer.
It's been nearly two years since Telling Lies and Her Story creator Sam Barlow began to tease his next FMV narrative mystery Immortality (then known as Project Ambrosio), but finally the cinema-inspired "investigative horror" has received its first proper reveal.
Barlow actually outlined Immortality's basic concept last June, revealing it would tell the story of Marissa Marcel, an actress who filmed three movies over the course of her career - Ambrosio in 1968, Minsky in 1970, and Two of Everything in 1999 - none of which were ever released.
Barlow has now shared a few more specifics as part of the game's first proper reveal (which also saw its title expanded to Immortality: An Interactive Movie Trilogy) explaining players will need to dig through an archive of film and behind-the-scenes footage to piece together the plot of each movie and find out what happened to Marissa Marcel.
It's a concept that should be immediately familiar to those who've played Barlow's previous acclaimed work, but Immortality is introducing a new, very visual means of interacting with its archival footage that sets it apart from the text-driven searches of Her Story and Telling Lies.
This time around, using a machine resembling an old-fashioned Moviola editing device, players are able to slowly open up the limited footage given to them at the start by pausing a sequence and directly clicking on an item of interest, whether that be a particular character, prop, or something else. The game will then generate a match-cut in real-time, cutting to another bit of footage in which that same thing appears - useful for following the chronological trajectory of a specific object, or perhaps even investigating certain imagery used in a movie.
And as previously announced, there are some notable names helping bring Immortality's mysteries to life, including writers Allan Scott (Queen's Gambit and Don't Look Now), Amelia Gray (Mr. Robot and Maniac), and Barry Gifford (Wild at Heart and Lost Highway).
Immortality: An Interactive Movie Trilogy comes to PC and Xbox Series X/S this "summer", and if you're wondering why Barlow is calling the experience an "investigative horror", he says more will be revealed on that front closer to launch.