Bloober Team certainly appears to be the busiest horror studio in the business right now. Off the back of its 2024 Silent Hill 2 remake selling over 5 million copies, the Polish developer currently has a staggering seven horror games in various stages of production. During Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show in Bangkok last week, IGN sat down with Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno to get an insight into the secrets to his studio’s success, its ambitious plans for the future, and why horror has become such a bankable genre in recent years.
“I would say that horror is always at its strongest when something bad is happening to the world,” said Babieno. “When we have climate changes, when we have wars, [or] when we have some economical issues in the world. This is the moment when society [has] some kind of fear inside.”
“That’s why horror movies, horror novels, and horror games are working so well," he continued. "It’s working for horror, but I’m not happy about it because it always means that the world is not in good shape.”
Babieno is obviously not wrong. Humanity is currently faced with a global cost of living crisis, increasingly volatile weather events, ongoing wars between Russia and Ukraine and the U.S. and Iran, and the existential threat posed by the rapidly accelerating adoption of AI across virtually every major industry.
At the same time, the horror genre has rarely been hotter across most entertainment mediums. Indie horror films Backrooms and Obsession became major success stories at the box office earlier this year, with the latter going on to make over half a billion dollars.
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