When Blumhouse Games revealed its first six projects last month, some familiar names were noticeably absent. Well known in Hollywood for breakout successes like Get Out and M3GAN, Blumhouse Games shied away from leaning on established properties with its new indie label at the jump… But that doesn’t mean they’re off the table.
“Certainly we will [incorporate established IP] eventually,” Blumhouse Games president Zach Wood tells IGN in an interview following June’s reveal. “So much of that I think comes down to the right timing. It’s the right idea, it’s the right creative partner, it’s what else is happening with that IP in the world because we want to do it right, and we know that fans are going to come with their own expectations of what those games should be. We just want to do right by fans and the creators of those film properties. We’re just being careful about it.”
Instead, Blumhouse Games is choosing to approach games as it has approached Hollywood: with a spirit of experimentation. The games it has signed so far run the gamut from well-known names (Project C, from Her Story developer Sam Barlow and Infinity Pool director Brandon Cronenberg) to existing releases that Blumhouse Games intends to release on console (Fear the Spotlight).
Other games include a horrific farming sim called Grave Seasons; a twisted folk tale called Crisol Theater of Idols; a horror game within a horror game called The Simulation, and Sleep Awake, a new game from Spec Ops: The Line developers Cory Davis and Nine Inch Nails’ Robin Finck.
From horror movies to horror games
First announced in 2023, Blumhouse Games is a logical extension of the studio’s famous brand of horror. Wood came to Blumhouse Games after a long career spent producing games like Sound Shapes and The Unfinished Swan, and now leads a team of around seven people. Assisting Wood is some of Blumhouse’s Hollywood talent, with prolific horror producer James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring Universe, Insidious) — himself a big gamer — among those consulting on the pitches following Blumhouse’s merger with his production company, Atomic Monster.
“We meet fairly regularly and show him pitches that we receive, progress on games that are in development and get his feedback. But there’s opportunity for more collaborations like Sam and Brandon Cronenberg. Certainly from a writing perspective, there’s a stable of writers and directors that are big fans of games,” Wood says.
“I think some of that too is just doing it the right way. It’s real collaborations that bring value to elevating a really cool creative work that you couldn’t normally achieve otherwise, versus just pairing with someone to put their name on a piece of key art or in a press release. There’s an authenticity to it that’s really important to us where we think we can really create some really exciting, fruitful collaborations.”
The new Blumhouse initiative comes right as Hollywood is becoming more invested in video game adaptations, with Blumhouse’s take on Five Nights at Freddy’s among those proving to be a hit. In such an environment, Blumhouse Games would seem to be an ideal incubator for new ideas, and Wood acknowledges that Blumhouse is open to turning the games that prove to be especially successful into one of its signature horror movies, though he’s not necessarily looking to spin up a new transmedia franchise.
“I guess what I would say is also just that it is coming from a real organic place with us,” Wood says. “We don’t think about it as our primary intent to extend game worlds through film and television, but we want to do it when the games resonate with the gaming audience and we think there are interesting stories to tell in those worlds. That’s the exciting part.”
Creative lead Louise Blaine adds, “Exploring those worlds in different ways, I think that’s what is really exciting about when content does its transmedia thing and goes from game to film. I think people don’t automatically want just a version of what they played, that never works. People want to experience those characters or even just the world or a spinoff of that world. I think there’s really rich potential there, and I think as long as it’s an authentic exploration that is story first, then it’s a great thing.”
Is there a world in which Blumhouse Games could work with Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon on publishing a new game?
“I think that’s Scott’s world, right? Certainly if Scott would reach out and want to collaborate on a game, I think that’d be exciting, but it’s really Scott’s world,” Wood says.
Scaring a decade’s worth of people
In the short-term and medium term, Wood stresses that Blumhouse Games is just trying to build a sustainable indie horror label in what has been an especially fraught year for games. Private Division, which recently shuttered two studios and may be on the verge of folding entirely, could be considered a cautionary tale for Blumhouse Games.
“I think just for us, it’s being conservative and being careful about growth and being careful about spend and being very methodical about how we look at our portfolio,” Wood says. “As sales of our games increase and there’s more desire for more games, then we will then increase the number of games per year that we release.”
That largely precludes any studio acquisitions, though Wood says he’s not taking anything off the table. The first potential area of growth, he says, would be releasing more games per year. In the meantime, if any developers want to pitch a M3GAN game of their own, Wood and Blaine say they would be more than happy to listen.
“It’s all about that authenticity of that experience,” Blaine says. “Because we love those IPs so much, I think it would be about finding the right fit for the right game for the right IP, and putting those together. That’s exactly what we want; it’s that love and everything to transfer because what people want is that authenticity of a linked product, whether that’s a film of a game property or a game of a film property. It works both ways.”
Blumhouse Games’ first official release is Fear the Spotlight, which will launch on PS4, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X|S later this year with additional content. After that, Blumhouse Games is planning to release three more games in 2025, and three more after that in 2026. Beyond that, Blumhouse Games’s main ambition is apparently to simply survive — a noble goal whether you’re in the games industry or a horror movie.
“If we scare a decade’s worth of people,” Blaine finishes, “that would be great.”
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
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