Ritual Tidesis an upcoming psychological horror game from indie studio Vertpaint, a team of veteran developers united by a shared passion for unsettling storytelling and bold design. Set on a remote British island steeped in occult history and folklore,Ritual Tidesdraws inspiration from the works of H.P. Lovecraft, the godfather of thecosmic horror genre. However, rather than merely being a nod to Lovecraftian horror,Ritual Tidesaims to immerse players in a world where dread is existential, reality is malleable, and the unknown is truly unknowable.
Game Rant recently interviewed Vertpaint CEO and creative director James Macleod aboutRitual Tides, targeting details about the upcoming horror game’s development, design, story, and gameplay. During the interview, Macleod passionately disclosed substantial information about what horror enthusiasts can expect fromRitual Tides, which aims to be one of the darkest and most disturbing Lovecraftian horror gaming experiences ever made.The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Ritual Tides' Development and Design
Q: Tell us about the inspiration behindRitual Tidesand how the Lovecraftian themes are going to be integrated into the game’s narrative and design.
A:Essentially, I’ve always been a fan of cosmological horror, andH.P. Lovecraft, being the godfather of cosmological horror. Whenever I think of cosmological horror, I think of insurmountable horror. It’s not like Jason, from the famous horror films. Although he’s got supernatural qualities, he’s still just a man with a machete. Whereas Azathoth is like an unbelievably all-knowing entity, and Cthulhu is a similar thing. A lot of that influence has gone into the game and the writing itself.
I’m a big fan ofThe Thing on the Doorstep. That was a really big inspiration for me. Specifically, I loved thepossession narrativein that. It’s inspired both in the human narrative side of things, but very much so in the creature designs as well. One of the things I always wanted this game to be is a vehicle for exploring those designs. So, we’ve got Cthulhu. We’ve got all those entities. Well, let’s see those on-screen and let’s see clever ways of molding that with humanity.
Q: I did want to ask about Vertpaint, too, because you’ve got these different developers who came together for this independent studio. How has bringing all of your past experiences together influenced the development ofRitual Tides, and have you encountered any challenges because of that?
A:The first thing we decided to do when we started the company was to become anoutsource developer. We could have gone down the “Let’s script and make a demo and then bring that to a publisher” or “Let’s go down the commercial route and do an outsource studio, and then build up our funds.” Eventually, the idea was to put our money where our mouths were, pour all the funds into the game, and then use that as the template. We very much went down that latter route. We decided, “Let’s go into the professional commercial field.” We all come from a AAA background anyway.
In terms of the challenges, we’re very, very lucky. We’re very lucky we did that method first. It could have gone wrong. We could have wound up with no clients and no demo, which was, in the back of my mind, a big fear point. What it actually meant was we had about five years collaborating, working on some of the industry’s biggest projects. All of our own individual experiences are coming to the fore, but also the experience of working as a team.
I’m not much of a sports guy, not very knowledgeable about it, but I like to think of our studio as a sports team where it’s all about the training scenario that matters just as much as the individual skill sets and learning where someone’s good at something, and it might not even be their designated job title. Some of the best influences on the design side have come from our programmers and, similarly, we’ve had artists jump up with an idea that turns out to be gold from a gameplay perspective. I would say the biggest advantage we have is having gone through the wringer with so many projects. In doing that, we also highlight key things that we don’t want to repeat.
Every team makes mistakes — us included — but we’ve spotted some big pitfalls. We decided that when we do it, we’re going to try to avoid X & Y. It’s been more of a net benefit than anything else. On the contrary, we’ve got some really big personalities in the team, but everyone knows what we’re making, and everyone is pushing towards the same goal. It’s only been a good thing to have those big personalities so far. We’ve not really had any big creative clashes.
Q: I think you have already touched on this a little bit, but not having an external publisher has been a big deal for your creative direction and the whole development process. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?
A:It’s very much in the narrative context. I wouldn’t know how to pitch this to a publisher. I know how I would pitch it from a macro lens. I know I could say, “Here are the games we love, here are thegames that have inspiredthis, and here’s what we’re looking to bring that’s new to this formula,” and we could talk about things very mechanically. However, when you get down to the story, we’re almost nervous about it. The fact that we’re nervous about this is probably good.
There are themes within the story that are exceedingly dark, and they’re exceedingly dark, not for gratuity’s sake — they’re exceedingly dark because they paint a picture of how dark this bad side of this, I want to say, “entity” is. There are some really mean people in the game, and we could have danced around that and not shown that, but we decided to go the other way and to dive into it because that is a big, big component as to why the game’s scary.
Going to a publisher, these things wouldn’t have been allowed. Having worked for several companies, we’ve been to the cutting room floor, and we know what can get through and what cannot. We know that lots of this content wouldn’t have been allowed. Again, the thing I attempt to stress on this is that if something were there just to be gratuitous, it wouldn’t serve a narrative purpose. Because these things are in service of this narrative, we feel that it would be weird not to include them. There are some themes explored in this game that are just very, very dark, and that’s what excites us because this is what we want to make.
Q: You want to give a genuinely memorable experience, but what do you think will be the biggest thing that will resonate most with players and set the game apart in the horror genre?
A:That’s really interesting because there’s a slightly different answer depending on what I’m focused on. Mechanically, there are certainly new things we’re doing — that’s really exciting for me. I was inspired byfirst-person horror games, in particular, and a recent, absolutely amazing example of that isResident Evil Village. That’s very much an action-shooter game, but it had a real emphasis on horror as well. I love so much of what that did.
If we were to come forward and say, “This is how, mechanically, we’re moving the formula forward,” one of the things we’ve done is we’verebuilt in Unreal Engine 5, from the ground up, how the camera works. The most simple setup for first-person would be you’ve got a pair of arms and axes, and there are things you can and can’t do. What we’ve done is we’ve made it so that the camera rig is very complex, and it follows the anatomy of the rig itself, and that allows us to do some really fun things.
We’re trying to make you feel reallyimmersed in having to perform actionswithin the world. So, from a purely mechanical point of view, that’s how we’re pushing the first-person formula forward. In terms of aesthetics, we are giving ourselves enough rope to hang ourselves, and we’re saying that we’re going to be launching the most realistic game ever released. The reason for that is vastly to do with the technology we’ve been building internally.
The cool thing about that is that the second we start releasing things, people can call us out on it, so there’s nowhere to hide. Given the scale of the budgets of some games and whatnot, we’re very, very excited about that. Part of that is, being a slim-line team, there are workflows we can build that are just horrible workflows. They’re horrible. We’re wrestling with so many components, and the skill knowledge required to jump in at any level in that workflow is so bespoke that it isn’t tenable for a hundred-person team. I would never recommend this be used in a real AAA sense.
However, it is that very advantage, the fact that we can control every single component within that workflow, that means we can do something really awesome. There really is nowhere to hide. When you say “best looking,” you want everyone with their microscopes out, and you want people putting this next to other games. We’re not doing that because it’s not viable from a marketing perspective, but what I’m hoping is that we get a couple of influencers going and comparing stuff. That’s the dream anyway.
From a narrative point of view, it’s largely because we are making the exact game we want. The only evidence I would point to is a very famous, prominent horror writer. When I wrote the first script, I wanted to make sure that it had some validation, other than just myself and the team, because that can be a little bit murky — we tend to like what we make. I connected with this horror writer who’s one of my idols, and he really liked it. That was the green light for me.
It’s hard to say what I like most about that, blowing it apart. It’s quite esoteric. But the narrative is something I haven’t seen in a game. I’ve seen some cool stuff ingame literature, and I’ve seen cool examples of stories that are told beautifully.Amnesiabeing one, I think the narrative component was the strongest part of that game for me. How the player stumbles upon revelations and potentially gets to false conclusions, or maybe they get to a solid conclusion. That’s exciting to me.
Q: How does the setting help establish the atmosphere? What is the design of the island like, and how does it increase immersion and enhance fear and dread?
A:In terms of theBritish aesthetic, something that I find to be a cool horror experience is that cult-like Pagan aesthetic. This is very much Lovecraftian. You find yourself in and around a ginormous cult, and there are two sides to the cult. It leans into that very British flavor of Pagan, ritualistic, and witchy sort of thing. I’m trying not to ruin it. We want the player at all times to be second-guessing where they are. They know that they’re on this fictional island. They learn that this island is for cultists and inhabited by these people. But there’s also a lot of history within this island before this cult seizing power.
There is a lot of mining infrastructure. We did a lot of homework on the time period, even for the 1600s, like tin mining in Cornwall — that has a big presence within the game. It’s superseded by this new cult, and then they don’t use the buildings in the same way. We’ve used traditional architecture, while overlaying how a nasty cult might then repurpose that and create a complex. I’m treading around a very big beat in the story. It’s like this British and Orwellian experience, so the setting is very important.
Obviously, we’re very passionate about Britain. Locations like Dartmoor, for example, have so manyhorror storiesand years and generations of different folk tales. That has all leaked in, and we’ve got a lot of folklore and a Pagan wrapping to that folklore inside the game. Other than that, there is an otherworldly presence, and how that influences the world should make players question where they are. We really are leaving loads of breadcrumbs to paint this picture that you might be in a certain location, and we won’t say whether you are or not yet. Britain is really relevant, very important to crafting that horror, and it has a very British feel to the horror.
Q: Sound design is really important in a horror game, so how doesRitual Tides' sound design contribute to its atmosphere and immersion?
A:Our audio director has done a really awesome job of completely remapping how sound works in Unreal, and it’s something we’re so proud of. We want to get a hold of Unreal to show it off and talk to them, and see what they think, because it’s exciting. One of the things that was interesting in the pre-production phase was that Seth would go out and walk around coastlines all the time, and he’d be recording things and re-listening. He talks about pressure a lot, pressure in the eardrums.
When you’re walking across the coast, if you turn one of your ears toward the coast, then you’ve got inland in the other, the sense of pressure differentiation is really dramatic, and it does things that you wouldn’t expect. I believe there’s a lot to do with low-frequency tones and whatnot. He talks about occlusion systems a lot. He wants to be able to have a chain of command and control over what you hear. You’ve got your coastal sounds, for instance, that are very ambient and distant, but maybe you go into a house, and then you open a door or a window. You don’t just want to have it be like a random stereo, you want it to be the system outside that then works with the system inside.
Essentially, what it means is that you can really subvert the player’s attention. Agood jump scareis like a good joke — you can’t know the punchline is coming, and it has to subvert your expectations. Having those really tight controls over audio allows us to do some really fun things. Even taking away sound might be a good jump moment as well. There are some really cool off-beat things that we’ll be doing.
Ritual Tides' Story and Gameplay
Q: Can you talk more about the structure ofRitual Tides' narrative, and then how does player agency factor into that, assuming it does?
A:I really want to start releasing bits of the narrative because that’s what would draw me into it. I can’t say who you play as because the narrative structure plays out so that you don’t know who you are in the game. So, you washed up and were saved by someone who found you on the edge of the beach and pulled you into a cove. You find out quite quickly that this person also isn’t from the islands, and they’re not visiting because they want to — they’re visiting because they’re trying to help someone.
You’ve got two characters: Malcom and Edward, who are childhood friends. Edward is from an aristocratic background. He wasn’t shown much love growing up, and it was all very systematic. He’sfascinated by the occult. And Malcolm was an orphan, so he was also in a loveless household, although he was on the poorer spectrum. So, they’re very different in their upbringings. They found each other, and they found within each other a companion, and then, together, they took a really deep dive into the occult, and they were fascinated by all the stories that got their hands on.
They grew up together and went to the University of Cambridge. Long story short is, Edward went missing in his second year, and the authorities were no use, his family was no use, and he was just sort of erased. The world carried on, but for Malcolm, Edward was like the closest thing to family. He actually studied engineering, so he wasn’t going down the history of the occult path. It was just a fascination and partly just anchored him to his friend.
But one day, he finds something, and it gives him clues to Edward’s whereabouts. So, he follows those breadcrumbs and eventually arrives at the island. He basically found a journal and notes within that journal from Edward clued him into some disturbing facts and that set him on his path. And so he took it upon himself to follow Edward into the dark. That’s very much like aprologue to the game, and it follows the actions of both Edward and Malcolm, although the structure of the story doesn’t say that they are incredibly important.
They have importance, and they’re very important in terms of how certain events kick off. But we use them as a vehicle to tell things to the player that they might not otherwise be exposed to. I’m excited about how they play a part in the story. But for the players themselves, we can’t really say anything. The player isn’t supposed to know anything. They’re supposed to know that some kind person rescued them from the sea, and that’s about it. This kind person goes off hunting for someone else, Edward.
You also mentioned player agency. We want to make a game where the player can go left or right, but also, there’s something you have to address, and horror, in particular. Agame likeSkyrim, for example, isn’t predicated on scaring the player. We want to give the player agency — they’re on an island, so what a perfect setting to allow you to choose where you go. However, you will find yourself in areas where you are locked off, and hiding that fact is a big part of good design. We want people to stumble into things, but you are still very much in control of what you do.
Q: DoesRitual Tidesdo anything to entice players in any certain direction, maybe sounds or visual cues?
A:Oh yeah. We encourage looting. The player should be incentivized to look around every nook and cranny and attempt to find things that work to their advantage. As the game’s developer, we know that, so we can do some mean things that are not just punishing for the sake of punishing. We made a point that we don’t just want it to be the developer versus the player. That’s not fun for either party. What is interesting is seeing how far someone’s going to push it.
We know you’re looking for things. Would you go here? Then, if players do go into certain areas, we can have a lot of fun. And I think some of thebest scarescome from the exploration side of things — those things can be the scariest because you are on your own. You put yourself there.
Q: What’s the balance, then, between jump scares and atmosphere inRitual Tides? Your background suggests that you’re going to be more focused on atmosphere, but is there a decent balance between that and jump scares? Because there are horror games that just lean on jump scares and that’s it, but to me, atmosphere is more important.
A:One thing I like to do is attempt to break down films because some of thebest horror experiencesI’ve had have been from films. Games have very unique storytelling and that’s why I’m fascinated, and I want to bring something unique to that formula from the horror perspective. But we broke down a lot of films in terms of their minutes on screen. How many minutes are building atmosphere or anticipation versus the jump scare, and the jump scare is a very small percentage.
We try and use a formula of “if you know you’re going to be jump scared, it’s not scary.” We’re treating them like an art form rather than a toolbox. We do have a lot of them in there, but we don’t want you to expect to be jump scared. So,building atmosphere and anticipationis an important component, as it is in a Lovecraft book. Quite often, I’d argue that the payoff in a Lovecraft book, the climax of the narrative, isn’t the best bit. The best bit is the lead-up, the building up of atmosphere — the feeling that you’re about to be scared is the scariest moment. So, atmosphere is what we’re leaning heavily into, especially with the visuals. We want people to be immersed in where they are in the world.
Q: What aboutRitual Tides’unconventional weapon system that has barely been mentioned? Can you tell us anything about that?
A:We’re always changing the design. We have a fixed design, but we’re playing it a lot, and as more development takes place, we’re playing even more. We’re realizing some things we predicted just didn’t work, and it’s quite interesting. On paper, some things can sound fun, like from an MMO sense, for example. Some things that you could write on paper for an MMO sound like the most amazing things in the world, and then, when playing them out, you discover they’re the most arbitrary, boring things you can imagine.
From that perspective, we went light on theshooting mechanics. Horror, for us, isn’t about running through and shooting things, as it still is, and it never will be. We did find that by completely stripping back that combat player agency, it took a lot of what would feel like authentic survival out of it. For example, we often try to envision you in a situation, not the game character, and we ask, “What would you do in this situation?” It’s funny how many times you’re like, “I’m going to find something to defend myself with,” and that’s the line of thinking at that moment. We have brought in a lot more of the combat side of things, the shooting side of things.
The reason it’s quite hard to talk about the unconventional side is that it’s a bit of a twist in the game. It’s so story-rooted, unfortunately. Let’s just say that not everywhere in the game is as terrestrial as Earth. That’s kind of the way I would try to describe it. So, maybe the rules are different there. Let’s say that.
Q: What about enemy variation inRitual Tides? I know it’s going to be a big part of it. You’re going to have these gruesome enemies. How did you design these to make sure you have this new experience as you’re going through the game, rather than constantly encountering the same thing?
A:We’re hugefans ofSilent Hill.Silent Hillhad a behind-the-scenes documentary, and one of the things I latched onto really early when I was young was how they had respect for each enemy variant, and they cared about the psychological side of what they’re putting in front of the player. It provides this, like an onion of psychological dread, and the more you look into something, the more uncomfortable it makes you. That’s what we’re trying to do in our version of enemy variation.
We’ve been looking into things that make us, the team, uncomfortable and trying to embed that in a single character rather than all the characters. So it isn’t all the characters. One, you become a bit dead to it, and two, it just takes away the interest factor. What I find is that a reward in our game is seeing the enemies and being with the enemies. What we wanted to do was something where the variables are quite drastic in terms of what can happen to someone. It’s verySilent Hill-esque in that respect.
Very psychologically disturbing characters, where the more you look into them, the more you look at them, and the worse they become. That’s kind of what we’re leaning into.Enemy variation, I would say, is right there at the top of what I would be excited about if I didn’t know anything about the project, and I was buying the game.
Q: What aboutRitual Tidesin terms of difficulty and length? Is it going to be a pretty difficult experience?
A:The game’s got difficult bits. The important thing forRitual Tidesis that we want areas of the game to feel different. We want people not to get it right the first time. But the whole game isn’t like that. So, a lot of the game is paced so that you’re taking in the world, and it’s leaning much more on atmosphere. The majority of the atmosphere and tension building isn’t necessarily difficult. It’s more psychologically difficult. It’s like walking through a very scary space is mechanically very simple but can be very difficult as well.
I would put it akin to the likes ofSilent Hillfor the difficultyramp. Certainly, some bits are tricky. We want there to be skill checks, and that’s why, with traversal, we’ve built in so many mechanics. One of our fears was that you hold forward and that’s it. You want the player to be gaming. They’re not watching a film. They are actually in a game, and there are consequences to things. Swimming, for example, is really important in our game. That has to be gamified, otherwise, it would just be watching someone swim.
In terms of longevity, that’s an answer I can’t actually give you an out because we actually don’t know yet. We’re still trimming the fat and adding content. It’s as live a development as you can get, but that’s what makes us enjoy it. It’s not like we’re just burning through to-do lists. It’s like a wish list, and then it’s a debate about whether things that people have added to the wish list work or not. We don’t actually have a fixed time yet, annoyingly.
Q: Are you still aiming for a Q3 2025 launch forRitual Tides?
A:We are. We are aiming as hard as we can. Of course, game development has taught us that every target is a moving target. We’re hoping that this one doesn’t move. However, we desperately want to release cross-platform. You canplay with a mouse and keyboard, butRitual Tidesis designed for a controller. That’s my personal preference. I’m a PC gamer, but I love controller input. The biggest variable is that if we go down that route, do we actually launch it cross-platform at the same time? That would be my absolute dream.
Q: It might be too early to ask, but do you have any post-launch plans or hopes forRitual Tides?
A:I’ve got a big hope. We’ve written a lot. In terms of core stories, there are three games already written. One is completely fleshed out — that’sRitual Tides. The other two have had a lot of work poured into them, but they just stood on their own, and we wanted it to be more like an IP. If you become invested in theRitual TidesIP, it’s very much anorigin story. In the mythos, there’s an aeons-old origin to some of these dark things, but this is very much like an origin to the big bad threat within theRitual Tidesuniverse. We’re not interested in just making a one-off game, although we are really excited about this game.
Q: Is there anything else that I didn’t ask that you wanted to throw out real quick?
A:One thing we’re very excited about is that we’ve managed to get on the radar of Daz Games. So, he’s now voicing a character in the game, and it’s one that I’ve been writing for a long time, so I’m super excited about that. And I’ve just been a Daz follower, so that’s one thing I’m excited about.
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