Interpoint looks like a psychological horror version of Portal

Psychological horror through different realities? Who wouldn’t love this? 

Sifting through the endless seas of new information about games and projects in the indie dev world I stumbled upon Interpoint, a new game that has been announced today through various social media platforms and that looks like a psychological horror version of the Portal franchise, a concept that hasn’t inspired many of the latest games in the indie scene.

The information about Interpoint’s developers is scarce, to say the least, but I was able to determine that it has been supported by Russian studio Juvty Worlds and developed by Three Dots. Apart from the great visuals that today’s released trailer showcases, its dark atmosphere and eerie world will definitely have a great appeal for fans of the survival and psychological horror genres.

Together with today’s trailer a Steam page has also gone live, revealing some details from Interpoint’s story and setting, which is described as a “first-person sci-fi mystery with elements of psychological horror” in which players take the role of Harry G., a scientist member of a secret organization researching the existence of parallel worlds.

And this is where the influence from the Portal franchise comes into play. This mysterious organization, called Delta Laboratories, has developed a portal-gun that allows Harry to traverse through different realities. Sounds like a mix between Portal and Half-Life, blending the portal-gun mechanics with the looming presence of Delta Laboratories and its unknown agenda. “All other worlds discovered were either an almost exact copy of ours, or completely surreal worlds with unknown creatures”, reads Interpoint’s Steam page.

This portal-creating gun is defined as a “Photo Gun”, which we’ll have to charge through radiation, light sources and force fields. Puzzles and narrative-driven exploration will be key aspects of Interpoint as we help Harry get back home. But the trailer and screenshots available show some pretty interesting, secondary functionalities of this Photo Gun. We can see some silhouettes being revealed through the world as Harry fires his gun in certain places, allowing him to get more information about what’s been happening around him in the past, or maybe in the present?

From a narrative standpoint, Interpoint promises deep storytelling, plot twists and several different endings depending on how much we decide to explore and how many pieces of information we end up collecting. This configures a pretty interesting cocktail to keep an eye out for, especially for its chilling atmosphere. This contrasts with the more light-hearted Portal franchise, which also had some mystery elements to it to be fair.

But as we see in Interpoint’s screenshots and trailer, there’s a common dark theme in all of them where survival horror truly shines. I think it’s also fair to say that there are some Alien: Isolation kind of things going on in Interpoint through its visuals, effects and that small 90s’ looking screen on the side of the Photo Gun.

Interpoint’s release date hasn’t been announced, although its Early Access phase will start at some point of this year’s Spring. We also know that it will be available not only for PC, but also on consoles through Playstation 4 and Xbox One during 2019’s Fall.