We’re big fans of Santa Ragione’s previous work, which includes MirrorMoon EP and Fotonica, around these parts, and Saturnalia sounds just as intriguing. It’s a survival horror adventure, of sorts - one heavily influenced by the folklore of Sardinia - that sees players guiding four different characters through a mysterious ancient village steeped in murky rituals. The goal of Saturnalia is to investigate, and ultimately solve, the mystery of village, but there are shadowy things in the night determined to stop you. Should you get captured as one character, you can switch to another and attempt a rescue - but once all four characters are dead, the village gets to reassert itself, its labyrinthine layout physically reconfiguring for another attempt. Narrative and puzzle progress, however, is retained across game-overs. If that brief description’s left you intrigued, there’s a much deeper delve into Saturnalia’s mechanics in the newly released gameplay overview trailer above. Saturnalia comes to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Switch, and PC (via the Epic Games Store) on 27th October, and if you’d like to learn more about its shifting horrors, Eurogamer’s Christian Donlan had a lengthy chat with Santa Ragione last year.
