There’s no shortage of first-person psychological horror games these days, but the beginnings of this latest one sounded interesting enough to grab my attention.
Dead Take is the second game from Pocketpair Publishing, the publishing arm of Palworld dev Pocketpair, and it comes from Tales of Kenzera: ZAU dev Surgent Studios and its CEO, HBO’s House of the Dragon actor Abubakar Salim. If that’s a mouthful and sounds a bit weird, that’s because it just might be. And that’s where some of the appeal comes from.
In Dead Take, “you play as an actor who becomes uneasy when your friend won’t answer the phone,” and so you begin to “delve into the gilded rot of the entertainment industry and show up at the last place he was before he went quiet: a dark, opulent mansion.”
The short teaser reveals very little, as you may expect from a game that relies on surprises and scares, but the descriptions given by the studio are what make it sound most interesting to me.
“Discover a side of the entertainment industry only discussed in whispers, full of cruelty and sordid gossip, memories of roles gone wrong, unsettling audition tapes, and shadowy figures with the power to make or break your career,” Surgent Studios said.
“We’re being secretive for a reason,” said Abubakar Salim, CEO of Surgent Studios. “The subject matter of this game is delicate, and it hits close to home. When it comes out, and it won’t be long until it does, I want players to think, ‘I can’t believe they actually did this.”
This may be a case of a CEO being a hype man, but I guess I fell for it. I’m not usually a big fan of these kinds of games. But everything about Dead Take sounds quite intriguing so far, and as an actor himself, it sure sounds like this story is trying to go places that he and a few others may have a unique bit of insight into.
Dead Take is now available to wishlist on Steam, and it’s set to launch sometime this year.
Published: Jun 3, 2025 08:37 am