Creepy retro horror game Fear the Spotlight is out now

Fear the Spotlight from Cozy Game Pals and Blumhouse Games is a retro-styled horror game that looks like it would fit right in on the original PlayStation. It's just be re-released on Steam with Linux support. Note: key provided by fortyseven.

Originally released last year, the developers took it off Steam to expand it a little with new content and fix up various reported issues. The result? A seriously tension-filled love letter to PS1 survival horror, with little nods to Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and a perfect fit for your 2024 Halloween to get in the mood.

Starring a bit of an odd couple, Vivian and Amy, who are very much the opposites in terms of style and personality. One night they decide to break into their high school to find a spirit board to hold a séance, and as you might expect from a horror game — it doesn't exactly go to plan.

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What's quite interesting is that you get to play through two different stories here. The first one that serves up as an intro into all the game mechanics, the setting and the atmosphere and then a few hours in once you finish the main story it will flip (in a way I won't spoil) so that you get a taste of things from another perspective.

It's not a particularly scary game (although definitely creepy) that relies on the atmosphere and not jump scares or combat. Fear the Spotlight is all about hide and seek from enemies, and all the disturbing sounds to make your heart race a little. There's plenty of puzzles to do as well, which will change how you interact with the game from the third-person exploration into more of a point and click interface that nicely splits up the exploration (and gives you a chance to breathe a little easier). The puzzles aren't particularly challenging either, so overall it's one that would be quite a nice entry into the genre and for perhaps a slightly younger adult / late teen audience to appreciate.

As long as you can stand the retro visuals, you're in for a bit of a treat. Visually, I think the retro look works a lot better with these types of horror games than it does other genres, it just seems more fitting somehow and Fear the Spotlight really does look and feel the part. Not an overly long game either that you can likely finish between 5-6 hours, so it won't take you forever to get through either (which works in its favour).

It has Native Linux support. Although, the Native Linux version has an issue where the audio will go to the wrong output (a bug that happens on Steam Deck too). So you have to manually switch it over in your system settings. Another bug I encountered was the Linux version repeatedly locking itself to 20FPS. Neither bugs are present when playing the Windows version with Proton 9.