Null Video games and sport studio Friday Sundae unveiled a musical thriller journey sport known as There Are No Ghosts At The Grand.
The sport debuted on the Xbox showcase at the moment through the week of the Summer season Recreation Fest. It’s coming in 2026.
Anil Glendenning, artistic director at Friday Sundae, stated in a press briefing that the sport is a comfy, spooky, musical thriller.
The sport is ready in England, the place a younger American man, Chris David, finds out that his actual father left her a delapidated resort on the east coast of England in his will — from a father that Chris by no means met. The resort has been within the household for generations, and it comes with an eccentric caretaker who has been round for a very long time.
As the brand new proprietor, you must renovate the resort. Your father was renovating the resort when he disappeared. You’ve gotten his energy instruments and may choose up the place he left off. But as you look into issues, you discover there’s something mysterious occurring. Individuals equivalent to servants provide you with recommendation, and you must think about whether or not to belief them.
“That is the debut sport from Friday Sundae as a studio,” Glendenning stated.
It’s a first-person, narrative pushed sport with a singular mix of genres. Within the sport, you’re going to renovate and restore a spooky outdated resort utilizing quite a lot of exaggerated energy instruments, transferring from room to room, discovering clues to unlock the secrets and techniques inside.
“However this isn’t this isn’t a simulation sport or a roguelike. It’s a single-player story sport with depth, coronary heart and humor,” Glendenning stated. “The adorning is quick, fluid and enjoyable, and the story is stuffed with selections. It’s additionally a musical however not a standard one.”
Chris units about restoring the resort, however finds he has solely 30 days and 30 nights to finish the job as a result of one thing is improper beneath the floor. Glendenning stated it’s a “compelling supernatural thriller filled with secrets and techniques,” together with people who the participant character, Chris, hides from the participant.
“You see, (Chris) does issues off digicam while you’re not controlling him. He hides issues from the display, virtually as if he is aware of you’re watching,” Glendenning stated. “Gamers ought to deal with him like an unreliable narrator. Don’t belief him, and don’t belief it when individuals say to you, there are not any ghosts on the Grand.”
Renovations can solely be carried out through the day. You should utilize varied energy instruments like a sand blaster, paint sprayer, a furnishings cannon and a daisy chain gun.
“You get to shoot out cracked home windows and explode outdated furnishings, strip wallpaper off and spray it down with a coat of shiny new paint. You get to shoot chairs and tables, clear throughout the room with a furnishings cannon, or, you recognize, tackle the backyard with a daisy chain gun to plant flowers, take away weeds, handle the grass and even trim the papyri,” Glendenning stated.
“We would like gamers to really feel like a cross between Mary Poppins and Marcus Fenix,” Glendenning stated. “And in each new room you full, you’ll unlock new secrets and techniques and new characters.”
The sport is concerning the “individuals and the bags they go away behind. You meet every of our sport’s characters as you delve deeper into the resort. Every individual is a custodian of a specific room that you may unlock. Colin, for example, the aged caretaker, can typically be discovered on the resort’s lounge. He’s a battle veteran and the keeper of household secrets and techniques. His daughter, Lily, alternatively, might be discovered within the greenhouse and kitchen gardens, complaining concerning the city and attempting to flee.”
Then there may be the resort’s cat, Mr. Bones the Bastard.
“Every distinctive character that you simply meet can inform you concerning the historical past of the resort and their private connection to it,” Glendenning stated.
As for the music, Glendenning stated there are songs with chunk in them, like punk tune’s from the Nineteen Eighties. Firday Sundae created the unique songs which are carried out by a band the studio created, The Concierge.
If you vacuum outdated particles within the resort, you’ll be able to uncover outdated newspaper tales and lots of different fragments. You could find secret passageways, piece collectively data on against the law board, uncover hidden rooms in blueprints, and clear up mild environmental puzzles. It takes place in a fictional seaside city known as Kingswood On Sea, which is a small open world across the resort. You possibly can stroll its winding cobblestone streets and look at its quaint, crumbling retailers and its forgotten beachfront.
“Gamers will discover an outdated fishing boat. You possibly can renovate it, take it out on the shallow coastal waters and discover the hidden coves and sunken bays of Kingswood On Sea,” Glendenning stated. “Gamers will even discover on board a winch which they’ll use to dredge for issues misplaced. They’ll observe treasure maps that they’ll discover within the resort throughout renovation and fish up extra clues, notes, rumors and even quests deep from the ocean depths.”
You possibly can discover locations within the city like an deserted mini golf course, and you are able to do facet missions like odd jobs for odd individuals.
“Don’t keep out too late, as a result of if you happen to do, you may simply come nose to nose with issues altogether extra disagreeable that lurk within the resort and issues that crawl and slither up the seaside and cliffs leaving multi-legged footprints trailing again to the darkish ocean waves,” Glendenning stated.
I requested concerning the inspiration for the sport. Glendenning stated, “We love ghost tales. We love spooky tales. And we have been all the time asking ourselves, ‘What’s a relatable scary story? What’s a relatable spooky story? And one of many issues that stored coming again to us is that first day you spend in a brand new home or a brand new residence, and also you’re adorning and also you’re placing your furnishings out, and it feels nice, it feels cozy. After which night time falls and also you’ve bought to depart this coziness and discover your approach to a toilet down a darkish hall, and hastily that cozy shifts to creepy. And it will probably occur instantly, and that feeling of being alone within the empty constructing, that feeling that we typically get simply in our personal workplace constructing that’s 400 years outdated, that’s one thing that we needed to seize right here.”
On the similar time, as followers of Luigi’s Mansion and Animal Crossing, the staff needed to create one thing that straddled that hole between cozy and creepy, and actually contrasted these two issues, he stated.
As for recommendation for the participant, Glendenning stated, “Our advice is to discover each nook and cranny of the resort, uncover each secret passageway and each secret door, put all of these scraps of paper in your crime board, and attempt to determine the thriller earlier than your time is up, since you’re actually going to need these instruments by the point no matter is rising reaches you.”
