Visage: details, release and gameplay from our interview

First of all, I would like to thank you sincerely for this new opportunity. We are really proud, for our italian fans, to interview Jonathan Gagné e Jonathan Vallières, SadSquare Studio’s co-founders, the team behind Visage.

Read the interview in italian

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): First of all, how is the game’s development? When we can see a new trailer or a new gameplay for Visage?
SadSquare Studio: Development is going well, we’re working every day on the game, and it’s really shaping into something enjoyable, horrifying, and very mind-bending at times. We have also planned to release a very small teaser in the near future, introducing something new.

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): Since our last interview, we saw several new hardware. What can you tell us, for example, about PlayStation 4 Pro or PlayStation VR?
SadSquare Studio: Well there isn’t all that much to say about the PlayStation 4 Pro other than it will help the console version run at a higher resolution, and maybe get closer to what Visage will look like on a gaming PC. We still aim to make Visage playable in VR on PlayStation 4 VR.

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it) Can you confirm that the release of Visage is set for January 2017?
SadSquare Studio: Estimated release date is still January 2017, but as we mentioned in our Kickstarter’s campaign, delays are possible. We’ll let everyone know the official release date when it’s fixed.

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): What do you think about Nintendo NX? Is it possibile, in the future, to see the game on this platform?
SadSquare Studio: Nintendo NX looks great, but like every Nintendo console, we’ll need to know if it’s up to deliver enough performance. As for the possibility of releasing Visage on Nintendo NX, it’s not out of the question, but it’s highly unlikely. It depends on a lot of things, but for starters, Nintendo consumers aren’t exactly known to love horror.

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): Speaking about Visage, can you tell us which is the best platform to play with the game? PC or console (if there are differences)?
SadSquare Studio: The experience should be amazing no matter what platform you play it with. You might have some performance gains/better graphics quality on PC, but I doubt it will have much impact on most gamers. Visage will run pretty well on consoles. There’s one thing to mention, though: it plays a whole lot better with a controller! So PC gamers, get a controller for your PC!

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): In your last update on Kickstarter, you spoke about “a lot of changes/addition to gameplay”. Can you tell us something about that?
SadSquare Studio: Without giving too much details, we decided to add another layer of interactivity with your surrounding. There won’t only be light switches to mess with. Pretty much every room will give you something to play with during your play-through, going from a range from replacing light bulbs to smashing walls with sledge hammers (and much more). Oh and also, players who are used to having a flashlight to comfort themselves will be sad.

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): What can you say about Visage’s longevity?
SadSquare Studio: Visage will probably be longer than we previously anticipated. We still aim at a solid 6 hours of gameplay, but with 6 hours of gameplay, you won’t see half of what the game is offering. The longevity is exponential to your level of curiosity, so the more you’ll search for clues and story elements, the longer the game will be.

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): Are you fan of horror movie (I guess so)? Is there any movie that inspired you for the game?
SadSquare Studio: We certainly are horror movies fans! We have seen quite a number of horror movies, and some of them definitely helped us to craft new ideas for the game. This is also applicable for the environment design as well as for the events in the story itself. We’d have to say that we are influenced a great deal more by Japanese horror movies such as The Ring (1998), Pulse (2001), Dark Water (2002), The Grudge (2002) or Shutter (2004). Still, some of the newer American horror movies such as Insidious, The Conjuring, and Sinister does inspire us a lot too.

– Samuele Zaboi (Games.it): And finally, do you want comment the return of Allison Road? We believe that this return underline the power and the popularity of the horror games in this industry.
SadSquare Studio: We think it’s a great thing that Chris Kesler is getting back on the project and we wish him the best of luck. We are really eager to play Alison Road. With the lack of psychological horror games these days, we’re just happy to see that the title isn’t cancelled after all, even if Allison Road could be called “competition”.