'Our game isn't gore porn' says director of game whose trailer features a zombie baby's skull being crushed and someone's eye getting scooped out with a knife

A story trailer for the gross-out horror game Ill dropped earlier this month, although frankly I didn't notice much in the way of story: I was too busy looking at, as cataloged by our Australian goremaster Shaun Prescott, the eye-scoopings, skull stompings, zombie baby punchings, and other such goings-on to really hone in on the narrative angle of the whole thing. Still, Max Verehin, CEO of developer Team Clout, assured me during a recent chat that there is indeed a story going on in there, and that those over-the-top visuals are actually inspired in part by one of the best-loved horror sequences in videogame history: Half-Life 2's We Don't Go to Ravenholm.

The Ill story trailer actually struck me as somewhat less extreme than the debut trailer that appeared at the 2025 Summer Game Fest, which was itself apparently somehow less worse than what the studio cooked up when it first decided to make the game. (And just as a gentle FYI, if you're sensitive to graphic violence and gore, you probably shouldn't be reading this and you definitely shouldn't be watching this trailer.)

"Our entire team has extensive experience in the horror genre, spanning games, movies, art, concept design, and so on," Verehin told me. "Like many players and audiences in general, we’ve reached a point where it's quite difficult to surprise us with anything in this genre.

"When we initially came together, our goal was to combine our experience and create a project that would feel fresh, unconventional, and stand out from the crowd even for us—something that could reignite those raw emotions that have grown a bit dull over time.

"That’s why during our initial brainstorming sessions, we try not to hold back and be bold, letting whatever madness we have run wild. Only after that do we look for a balance: how not to cross the line while still preserving our uniqueness. We aren't trying to do gore for the sake of gore, as our game isn't 'gore porn.' It aims primarily to scare and entertain, rather than just shock."

Which leads back to the narrative element of Ill's latest trailer, which Verehin said focuses on the game's characters and "our mysterious plot," although little of that is revealed: Some sort of unpleasantness in the world's worst hospital and you, who apparently just emerged from a coma, are elected as cleanup guy.

That's not the most original idea for zombie troubles I've ever run across, but it doesn't sound like a straight-up survival horror experience: Ill "combines horror and action," Verehin said, "and since we are fighting monsters rather than actual humans, we expect that tearing through them will bring a sense of fun against the backdrop of the general, oppressive horror."

That's where the Ravenholm comparison comes into play: A grim locale filled with headcrabs and zombie, Ravenholm is a memorable if somewhat incongruous chunk of Half-Life 2, but what really makes it work is the slice-and-dice combo of the gravity gun and numerous conveniently-placed buzzsaw blades. It's not bloody like Ill, but it's definitely a more visceral method of putting down inhuman horrors than just blasting at them with conventional firearms.

"We often look back at our own emotions playing through the We Don't Go to Ravenholm episode in Half-Life 2, how we fought back against the monsters, slicing them with saw blades using the gravity gun, blowing them up, and so on," Verehin said.

"Given the technology of that era, it created the perfect emotional impact. Today, the tech is vastly different, expectations are higher, and the bar for delivering those same emotions to players has risen. And we are doing our best to achieve that exact same effect, but with modern standards."

The tech has indeed improved in the years since Half-Life 2, and I asked Verehin if perhaps it had become a little too advanced—if the realistic depictions of, as Shaun put it, "skull explosions" might put some people off. Well, no—it definitely did, and does, put some people off.

But Verehin said that no single game is going to appeal to everyone, and based on the wholeheartedly enthusiastic responses to Ill trailers on YouTube, and the number of wishlists it's racked up on Steam—it now stands among the top 10 most wishlisted games, according to SteamDB—he thinks they're onto something.

"This audience knows exactly what they want and what they’ve been missing all this time, and they perfectly understand what we’re trying to achieve." And, he added, "we have a lot more content to share down the line, and players will get to see even more elements and mechanics that the game has to offer, which will naturally shape the overall perception as well."

I'll admit that I'm curious. I don't like horror games and I'm not a big gore guy, but Ill has put on enough of a wild freak show that despite myself, I really want to give it a try. It'ss set to launch sometime in 2027.