It wasn’t ideal for Andrea Lucco Borlera’s first game Horses to get roundhouse kicked to Hell with unforgiving bans on Steam and Epic, but the Italian designer won’t let a bit of controversy kill his macabre ambitions.
“It is perceived as radioactive in terms of publisher,” Borlera tells GamesRadar+ about his ideas for his next project. Horses, a black-and-white surrealist horror about brainwashed humans acting equine, was made in collaboration with Milan-based studio Santa Ragione. Borlera’s next idea “is a continuation in terms of, we can say, alt-reality,” and he’s married to it even if others disapprove. Though, he is uncomfortably attuned to the fact that others might not like it.
“It will be not mainstream, so, I don’t know,” Borlera says. Horses’ bans led to a decent amount of publicity and 18,000 copies sold in its first two weeks on Itch, the Humble Store, and GOG – which supported it loudly when other storefronts wouldn’t, but the experience has still made Borlera “much more aware than the past.” Nonetheless, he says, “I need to stay loyal to the vision.”
“The problem is that there is no niche in the sense that, speaking about mainstream cinema, for example – there are a lot of horror and horror company that make horror film. But you have Blumhouse, for example, you have A24,” Borlera says. Blumhouse is known for its expensive B-movies while A24 funds more cerebral horror, and though I think video game studios have similar distinctions – Supermassive prefers interactive horror, Remedy is phantasmagorical – the industry certainly has fewer homes for horror than film.
Borlera continues, “In video games, there is no equivalent. So it’s hard to find partner that can fit with your vision.” But, still, he’s planting his freak flag. “In the worst case, I could consider the Kickstarter way, or making by myself along the years.”
After selling 100,000 Steam copies in a week, publisher behind 8-year-old horror game says continued investment is key: “In 30 years, we’ve had 30 Resident Evil games.”
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