The Tartarus Key Announced

Developer Vertical Reach and publisher Armor Games Studios announced The Tartarus Key today. Billing itself as a psychological thriller, it takes inspiration from classics such as Alone in the Dark.

Alex Young is a young woman who wakes up and finds herself trapped in a gigantic manor. But, regrettably, she hasn’t escaped her nightmare just because she woke up. She quickly finds that there are cameras everywhere filming her every move. But her voyeur is the least of her problems as she tries to escape, and Alex soon finds she isn’t the only one held captive within the manor’s depths. Someone is guiding her along, using a portable radio to talk to Alex.

Alex will attempt to look for the survivors in the other rooms, their fate dependent on choices the player makes. Her potential allies include people ranging from a self-important conspiracy theorist to a detective with her own secrets to hide. Puzzles include many elements from the escape-the-room genre, with a tense atmosphere designed to keep the player on their toes. The Tartarus Key includes three endings for added replayability. The aesthetics definitely give off late-90s or early-00s video game vibes. It definitely brings to mind the golden age of survival horror.

The Tartarus Key team includes Leonor Parra, artist and founder of Vertical Reach, and Kevin Colegate as a programmer. Other titles by Vertical Reach include Tangrams Deluxe, a logic puzzle game, and Yuso, a screen-clearing puzzle game where you pop hordes of the titular round creatures.

Don’t forget to take a look at the moody, evocative trailer as Alex tries to solve a few of the puzzles in The Tartarus Key. You can also Wishlist it on Steam now. There’s no release date quite yet, but if you follow it you can be one of the first to know when it drops some time in 2022.