The final few months of the year are always big for horror titles as Halloween seems to put everyone in the mood to be spooked. Today, the upcoming psychological horror game In Sound Mind received a gameplay trailer that dives deep into the lore of the game and shows off its mechanics.
Posted to the official PlayStation YouTube channel, the In Sound Mind gameplay trailer takes a look at what players will be doing when they try to survive their way through the game when it releases later this month. The horror title will fit right in alongside other psychological thrillers releasing later this year like Alan Wake Remastered as it focuses primarily on the psyche of those around its protagonist, a therapist named Desmond Wales.
Desmond wakes up in an abandoned building only to find cassette tapes of his sessions with his patients which, after listening to them, transport him into their brains. Players will have to navigate the psyches of different people as they try to outrun or fight off different monsters themed around each patient's fears. In that regard, it shares a lot of similarities with Psychonauts 2 as the minds of each different person are wildly different from the next.
In Sound Mind is told through a first-person perspective that forces the player to choose between using their flashlight to see and holding a weapon for defense. While the game seems to mostly focus on its horror and psychology, it looks like it's going to take an action focus from time to time. The trailer showed off several different weapons for the player to use including handguns, flareguns, and shotguns.
Based on the gameplay trailer, it looks like In Sound Mind is going to be primarily taking place inside the minds of Desmond's patients which look to be surreal areas full of monsters living in unique environments. There's still a lot to be seen of the game, but so far it looks like it's shaping up to be a solid horror entry for 2021.
The game is being made by We Create Stuff, a studio whose past work includes the Half Life 2 mod Nightmare House 2 and the popular Flash game Portal: The Flash Version which imagined the gameplay of Portal as a 2D platformer. In Sound Mind seems to be promising based on its trailers and when looking at the studio's history of horror titles with Nightmare House 2.
In Sound Mind is set to release on September 28 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S with a Nintendo Switch version in development.