Onyx: The Dark Grip is an upcoming game by Bloober Team, the Polish studio known for titles like Silent Hill 2 and Layers of Fear. Bloober's newest horror-adventure has a unique premise. In it, the player controls the actions of a lone traveler who is exploring a ghost town while also directing the powers of a mysterious entity who is following him. The entity manipulates the environment to help the traveler progress. For example, the god-like figure can move obstacles out of the way or get a generator running. The twist is that, the more the player intervenes as the entity, the more unhinged the man becomes.
That clever mechanic is also the reason that Onyx: The Dark Grip cannot be played while docked: The game makes heavy use of the Switch 2's touchscreen. Bloober Team could have programmed the game to take button inputs or even Joy-Con 2 mouse controls, but manually interacting with the world could also help sell the idea that you truly are an otherworldly entity. The stranger on the screen would be smaller, which almost makes him feel like an ant or a plaything.
There's no release date yet for Onyx: The Dark Grip, other than a general 2027 window. Fans are already excited about the game, though. Bloober has a strong record in the horror genre, and the sanity mechanic is being favorably compared to Eternal Darkness. In the 2002 psychological horror game for the Nintendo GameCube, players had to manage a sanity meter that depleted whenever they were spotted by an enemy. The less sane the character became, the weirder Eternal Darkness got. If Onyx does something similar, then the game will be full of some juicy tension as players weigh the long-term effects of divine intervention.
You can check out more of Wednesday's Nintendo Direct announcements here.
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Image: Bloober Team
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