Of all the games I sat down to talk about at GDC 2024, none left quite as much of an impression as Life Eater, an upcoming kidnapper simulator. The game is developed by Strange Scaffold, the studio that has pushed the envelope on what types of stories you can tell in a video game in the likes of titles like El Paso, Elsewhere and Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator. Life Eater looks incredibly creepy, tasking you to stalk targets in order to kidnap and sacrifice them to a god that promises that, should you fail, the world is doomed.
The game utilizes a lot of elements that I love in other games–tracking down targets and learning their patterns like in Hitman, listening to recordings to deduce the location and motives of different people like Unheard–while adding a dash of horror that challenges the player to contend with the increasingly rewarding voyeuristic patterns. I spoke to Strange Scaffold’s Xalavier Nelson Jr. about how Life Eater hopes to dig its claws into the player with its focus on self-reflection horror and how, as he puts it, “the best horror emerges from asking a fairly innocuous question.”
Life Eater is scheduled to launch for PC on April 16.
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