I don’t like horror games. I can barely finish one on time, as you can see over in my review of ProbablyMonsters’ ‘Ire: A Prologue‘. And yet they intrigue me all the same, the fear of the unknown is almost as powerful of a motivator as a bag of Takis. In Ire’s case, it was more than just being a survival horror game: it takes place smack dab somewhere in the midst of the Bermuda Triangle, aboard a ship no less, and that is what kept me going. I really wanted to know just what the heck was trying to get our protagonist and why it was even on our vessel to begin with.
So, while I was struggling to finish a relatively “short” game, I had the chance to ask some questions to the developer about their new IP and, more importantly, the birth of a new franchise. Below, you’ll find a Q&A I held over email with ProbablyMonsters’ Franchise Narrative Director CJ Cowan on what Ire is, what it means to the studio, and what it takes to build a scary horror game. Because it’s a lot harder to do that than you think!
Before I get started, know that Ire: A Prologue is currently available on PC for 19.99 USD. For those who enjoy survival horror games, it’s worth taking a look at. Now, without further ado, read on to learn more about Ire!
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Heya, ProbablyMonsters! My name is Genghis and I’m with the writing team over here at XboxEra. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to answer a few questions about yourselves and your recently released psychological horror game ‘Ire: A Prologue’.
No game can be made without a solid dev team, really. Who are ProbablyMonsters and how did you guys come to be?
ProbablyMonsters was built to give developers creative stability and freedom. The company is comprised of several internal dev studios and a strong contingent of central service teams (like biz dev, HR, marketing, etc.). The Ire Team is made up of a group of highly experienced developers supported by a few trusted partners and contractors.
The core leadership team have a ton of major titles under their belt, and include: Matt Case (General Manager), CJ Cowan (Narrative Director), Travis Johnston (Technology and Design Director), Brad Shuber (Art Director), Victor Hollock (Production Director), and we just recently added Don Etgeton (Design Director).
What is “Ire: A Prologue”? Can you give us an idea on how the game was conceived? And why is this entry considered a prologue?
Ire: A Prologue is our take on “Cozy Horror”, telling the story of a girl named Emily trying to figure out what happened to her missing father by investigating an abandoned ship in the Bermuda Triangle. We call it “Cozy Horror” because sometimes the scariest stories are the ones that feel the most familiar. And also because we wanted to tell a scary story that would be accessible to an audience that might not usually gravitate towards this genre.
Inception stories for a game are always interesting—for Prologue’s case, it really started as a one sentence pitch late last year: “What if we made P.T. on a boat?” As for why we called it a prologue, you’ll just have to wait and see…
How did the team concept the cast and the monster that haunts the player itself? And is there a reason why the team decided to give Emily an active voice?
From the get go, we wanted this game to be a narrative-forward experience. That meant both our cast and our monster needed to be fleshed out and fully realized. The monster, affectionately referred to as “Scribbles” by the dev team, is inherently connected to Emily and her memories. So right from the start, we knew we’d be taking Emily on an emotional arc of facing the fear of her past and needed to convey that with an active voice. Thankfully, we found an incredibly talented voice actor in Jesse Vilinsky, who was such a great collaborator, both in finding Emily’s voice, and going on that journey with her.
Why the Bermuda Triangle? How did the team go about building a set piece that immerses the player in the game world? Are there other creative works that the game takes inspiration from?
As a kid, I was always fascinated by stories of the Triangle, but over the past couple of decades it seems like it just kind of vanished off of the public consciousness (kind of like the ships and aircraft it swallowed)! Since we were setting the story in 1986 for a range of nostalgia and tone reasons, we thought it’d be great to use the Triangle to set the stage for the weird stuff that was going to happen in our story. You can say the words “Bermuda Triangle” and use that as shorthand for your backstory, so players are trapped somewhere both mythic and personal.
The boat, Emily’s Dream, was essential in setting the stage for our Bermuda Triangle story. The team kept thinking of it like the ECTO-1 from Ghostbusters. However, instead of a hearse-turned-ghost-hunter, we built a fishing-trawler-turned-paranormal-research-vessel. Because of the format of our story, we needed the environment to carry a lot of storytelling weight, and the Art team did such a great job of creating a space with lots of layers for players to dig into, in addition to fulfilling the gameplay and puzzle needs.
In this game, players can’t fight back against the monster aboard the ship—with their most powerful weapon being their environment. Why did the development team choose to go with this style of gameplay? Was there a point in time during development where that wasn’t the case?
From the first days of this project, one of our primary themes we oriented around was “the fragility of youth”. This meant Emily was small and weak compared to her environment and the monster. She can’t reach the top shelves of the boat, she struggles to open those heavy doors and she wasn’t going to pick up a weapon and fight back. We always felt that the monster was scarier when you knew you didn’t have a chance against it.
As the player progresses, the ship they explore begins to open up and the objectives change. What was the philosophy behind each “loop” and how did the team go about designing each loop’s objectives?
The 13 Doors are very much organized in a three-act structure. Doors 13-9 lay the groundwork and introduce players to the world and its characters under the guise of “maybe Emily can fix the boat and sail off into the sunset!”. Act 2 starts by throwing those efforts out the window, and doors 8-4 center around Emily trying to discover what actually happened on the boat and how she might be able to fight back against the monster. The final loops bring on an Act 3 that reveals the dark truth that Emily has desperately tried to forget.
How did audio come into play in Ire: A Prologue? How do you guys keep things creepy aboard a ship, be it through music or the creaking of just about everything around the player?
You can’t make a great horror game without awesome audio, and our audio team is so ridiculously talented. The audio system is inherently aware of the amount of tension Emily is dealing with, and dynamically adjusts the music, the environmental sounds, the monster soundscape, and even the intensity of Emily’s breathing accordingly. All of those things in concert reinforce and amplify what’s going on in gameplay. But personally, one of my favorite things the audio team did was write and perform a custom “80’s Tune” to make the launch trailer come to life!
Are there features or levels that were cut from the final game that you wish could’ve made it in?
There wasn’t a lot that didn’t make the final game. The monster doesn’t initially open doors (and a pro tip for players: close those doors behind you!), but the monster changes and evolves as you get deeper into the game. Related to Scribbles ‘getting smarter’, at one point we planned on having the monster learn to use the vents in the final few loops to up the intensity, but we ran out of time and ended up creating more of a ‘trench run’ for the final climax getting into the Captain’s Quarters.
What do you think makes for a good horror game? Is there an example of a horror game out there you think fits your definition?
For me, it’s relatability. You should be able to squint and put yourself in the position of the story’s characters and feel what they are feeling. Emily works so well on this level, because we’ve all been kids before, frustrated with the world (and adults) around us being ambivalent to our struggles. And I think most of us have things in our past that we don’t like thinking about or remembering, which is the crux of Emily’s narrative.
What does the future of the Ire franchise look like? Will future games maintain similar gameplay features? Can you give a sneak peek, maybe?
Haha, nice try!
Could players expect Ire: A Prologue to come to consoles at any point in the future? Maybe even mobile devices?
I can’t really talk about this right now.
Any final thoughts you’d like to share with our readers? Any at all? The floor is yours!
I think mostly I’d like to say how fun it has been watching players experience Emily’s story on Twitch and Youtube and theorize about what’s really going on. There’s some great posits out there in the wild, and some of them are even close to the truth! It’s also great seeing players start to grasp that maybe they aren’t actually playing as Emily… that maybe they are someone else sifting through her memories. I think those beats are some of my favorite parts of our story, when Emily breaks the fourth wall and starts talking to you.When she says things like “I don’t want to remember anymore.” and “Stop. Making Me. Go Down There.” It’s those moments that really sell the promise of where we want to go with this franchise we’re so fond of!
Thank you for your time!
