Shadow Over Isolation looming for mid-2017 release

Written by Jack Allin — April 23, 2017 at 11:56

While many Lovecraft-inspired tales take us to gloomy northeastern US locales, Naughty Shinobi's upcoming Shadow Over Isolation will take us to sunny Georgia – though no less without its dark hidden secrets behind the bright facade.

The year is 1984, and players assume the role of Ryan Kappel, a man asked by his aunt to farmsit the family homestead in Kapra County. It's been 17 years since Ryan last visited the Road End Estate, but upon his return, it doesn't take long to "sense unease in the air." His "nostalgic trip down memory lane ends abruptly as he discovers a mysterious chamber that laid dormant in the now abandoned stable in addition to a defunct corporation that had hands in every wrong doing around town and a sinister history that drove the ancient natives to the brink of insanity."

The game's trailers and screenshots show off some of the detailed first-person environments available to explore throughout Kapra County. This is not merely empty scenery either, as the game promises to be "lush with interactive elements both functional and optional." Aiding in your investigation is the "Gray Matter" mode, which lets you "visually analyze observations and connect the dots to produce suitable outcomes." There are even alternate paths to take, allowing you to approach problems in a non-linear way.

While Shadow Over Isolation has been influenced by Lovecraft’s "sanity shattering mythos and storytelling style," the acclaimed writer isn't the game's only inspiration, which helps explain why it doesn't share the same pervading gloomy atmosphere of so many Lovecraftian offerings. Other influences include Stanley Kubrick and the "traditional adventure gameplay designs of the '90s." The main storyline should provide more than four hours of gameplay, along with side stories that "build upon the world’s mythos, urban legends, and characters arcs, including the Fairy Tree Murders case file, Disappearance of Senator Rosenberg, the Blackout of 1979 and much more."

While no firm release date has been set just yet, Shadow Over Isolation isn't far off now, with a target completion on Windows and Mac scheduled for sometime this spring.