Horror games work better when you’re at some kind of experiential remove. The fixed camera angles in classic Resident Evil. The amount of time that the xenomorph is off-screen in Alien Isolation. Even Half-Life’s muddy, warping textures. They create a kind of uncanny gulf, a gap between the player and the game that can only be filled with imagination. Monsters are scarier when you know they’re there, but you can’t see them. If the details are obscured so you can’t tell precisely what something looks like, you fill in the blanks with the worst things your mind can conjure. Inspired by RE4, Dead Space, and one of the best games of 2022, Signalis, Scarlet Lake is an upcoming Steam horror with a stylish, isometric perspective that adds to the terror, and you can try it right now.

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