Sometimes game studios end up working on properties that are such a perfect fit, it feels like they were made for each other. Bandai Namco andPokken. Firaxis andMarvel’s Midnight Suns. MachineGames andIndiana Jones. IO Interactive andJames Bond. [swap this with Insomniac and Spider-Man if Project 007 flops next year - Ed.]
Sometimes, a studio’s expertise perfectly aligns with the tone or style of an existing character or story, and magic happens. It’s not always obvious when a licensed game is going to be a hit, and sometimes, it comes as a surprise (anyone remember Rockstar’s game based on The Warriors?), but I love it when a match made in heaven turns out to actually be heavenly. I’m rooting for Strange Scaffold’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Tactical Takedown and Quantic Dreams’ Star Wars Eclipse, but the studio/IP mash-up I’d be most excited to see is one I just made up in my head: Supermassive Games andSeverance.
No One Does Narrative Horror Like Supermassive
There’s a scene from Man of Medan, the first game in The Dark Pictures Anthology, that has always stuck with me. While Shawn Ashmore and his four exceptionally naive friends explore the ghost ship, they are constantly being haunted by restless spirits who like to jump out when you least expect it, in a typical ghostly fashion. After a series of frights, reserved nerd Brad comes face to face with a zombie soldier, slowly shambling towards him down a narrow hallway. Luckily, Brad is armed, and if you have good aim and the desire to do it, you’re able to pop the undead freak right between the eyes and send him back to hell where he belongs.
Except, what Brad sees as a zombie is actually his friend Fliss. A gas leak on the ship is causing the group to hallucinate, and unfortunately, Brad doesn’t see Fliss for who she really is until after he shoots and kills her. This moment is especially memorable if you play Man of Medan in co-op. One player controls Brad and must decide whether or not to shoot the zombie, while the other one controls Fliss, who unbeknownst to Brad is begging him not to shoot her.
When I played Man of Medan with my friend, I was Brad and he was Fliss, and when it came time to decide whether or not to take the shot, my friend didn’t say a word. He didn’t warn me that Brad was hallucinating or tell me not to shoot, he just let things play out however they were going to, even if it meant letting his character die. The storytelling opportunity was more important, and when I think back at all the Dark Pictures games, that’s still one of the most interesting moments in the entire series.
Two Players, One Hero
If you’re as infatuated with Severance as I am, you’ve probably already figured out where this is going. The Apple TV series is about the exploration of a mysterious megacorp called Lumon and its controversial severance procedure - a brain implant that separates your consciousness into two individual identities. One version of you is only awake while at work, with no memory of who they are outside of the job. The other version gets to live their life outside, blissfully unaware of all the Machiavellian madness going on inside the Lumon office.
Severance follows a Lumon employee named Mark, who decides to go through the Severance procedure to help cope with the loss of his wife. Throughout the series, Mark’s Innie and Mark’s Outie both independently start to investigate Lumon’s secrets, slowly pulling at the threads that tie the series’ central mysteries together, completely unaware of their severed counterpart’s actions.
This kind of dual narrative structure is exactly what Supermassive excels at, especially in The Dark Pictures. The co-op-focused horror series is constantly playing with perspective by dividing up the information either player has access to and creating narrative opportunities, like the one in Man of Medan, that are so compelling, players understand the value of keeping crucial information from each other.
More To Explore On The Severed Floor
The severed floor is so much bigger than what we’ve been exposed to in the last two seasons. Just knowing there’s an entire marching band off in the undiscovered Choreography & Merriment department tells us there’s much more to discover at Lumon, and a video game would be the perfect way to further build out that world.
I imagine that, much like Lost: Via Domus, the Severance game would focus on a new character working in a yet-unseen department on the severed floor, during a period either before or running parallel to the events of the show. This would ensure the game can exist in that fuzzy space between canon and non-canon where licensed games like to live, while still having opportunities to feature familiar characters like Mr. Milchek (and if Tramell Tillman reprised his role, this game would sell itself).
The three-year gap between seasons left me wanting more Severance than a single season could ever satisfy, and while I don’t expect it will be another three years before season three, a Supermassive game to fill the gap would be just what the creepy doctor who tortures Gemma ordered. Supermassive released a Dark Pictures game every year from 2019 to 2022, so I know it could get a Severance game done quickly, too. I know it’s more likely that we’ll get some kind of Apple Arcade match-three game, but Severance deserves a real mystery game, and Supermassive is just the team to do it.
