The Conjuring: Unspoken, the horror franchise’s first dedicated video game, launches exclusively on Netflix on Tuesday, October 13. Netflix set the date and released the first trailer on Tuesday, and the trailer’s description credits Supermassive Games, the studio behind Until Dawn, The Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology, as the developer.
The game itself isn’t brand new. Netflix first listed Unspoken in its monthly New on Netflix newsletter in late September, and Polygon reported on September 23 that it was coming in October as the Conjuring universe’s first standalone game. What’s new this week is the release date, the trailer, the Supermassive credit, and a real look at how it plays.
Ghost hunting with your phone
In its Tudum explainer, Netflix calls Unspoken “an interactive paranormal investigation you can play from your couch.” It’s a cloud-based narrative game: the TV or a computer browser shows the haunted location, and your phone becomes the controller for your ghost-hunting gear. Netflix says it plays on TVs and on computers through Netflix.com, and it’s included with a membership at no extra cost and with no ads.
You play demonologist Francesca Noakes, investigating the historic Red Lion Inn, a decaying English pub that Netflix says is reportedly haunted. Your tools are an electromagnetic field (EMF) reader, an infrared camera, and a spirit box. Netflix says the infrared camera puts a thermal overlay on the scene so you can hunt for the cold spots that signal a presence. The dialogue options you pick shape where the story goes.
The setup follows the grieving Cooper family after they arrive at the centuries-old inn. According to Netflix, dolls go missing, a daughter hears her late mother’s voice at night, and a music box starts playing on its own. Then a séance goes wrong. From there, you’re trying to free the family from Vinea, a demon that feeds on grief, and Florrie, a ghost drawn from English folklore.
Netflix says you don’t need to have seen the films, though if you know Ed and Lorraine Warren well, “you’ll get a lot more from the experience,” since “a few familiar faces” show up. Shacknews notes that the trailer shows objects flying around a house and a figure levitating in a basement, which it reads as a nod to the first Conjuring film.
Supermassive and Warner Bros.
GameSpot and Shacknews report that the game was made in partnership with Warner Bros. That company is now part of Skydance, after Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday morning.
The news lands on a rough day for the UK studio. Earlier Tuesday, RCG reported that Supermassive is laying off more than 70 people following Directive 8020.
Netflix says The Conjuring: Unspoken arrives October 13 for members in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia, South Africa, and a long list of European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands.
