Mundaun promises to be a chilling mix of horror, exploration, puzzles, and eerie artstyle. The game takes place on the eponymous mountain, Mundaun, sequestered deep in the Alps and layered in sinister mystery. The player character is brought to the mountain by the death of his grandfather, only to find an evil mystery afoot that must be solved through exploration and puzzle solving. In a brief preview, the game's creator Michel Ziegler walked Ethan Stearns, the EVP of the game's publisher, through a segment of gameplay in the second of three large areas.
The Mundaun preview didn't showcase classic jump scares or body horror, but was excellent at conveying a mounting sense of dread that was occasionally broken up by the relief of a safe area or helpful hint. Stearns solved a couple of surreal puzzles to progress, first drawing a bridge on a canvas to make a real one appear in the landscape, and then retrieving an item from the mouth of a hanging body. The size of the area allowed for quite a bit of freedom in exploration, vital for getting past an array of creepy enemies.
The two things that Mundaun clearly does best are creating an immersive setting and portraying it through a unique artstyle. The setting of the Alps has been carefully crafted with thousands of reference photos, and NPCs even speak an obscure language, Romansh, local to the Alps and only actively spoken by a few thousand people. The realism present in small details lends the somewhat surreal landscape an air of believability, which only makes the horror better. Mundaun's art style depicts the alpine landscape in somber, black and white hand-penciled textures, adding to the "mood of oppression" that Ziegler wanted to get across.
After the preview event that Game Rant attended, there was a quick Q&A session in which the creator spoke at length about some of the ins and outs of creating the game and its atmosphere. Some of the most illuminating questions and answers are included below, edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What sorts of local folklore to inspired the game's story?
A: There's no specific tale, but folklore was borrowed from all sorts of places. The myth of the devil’s bridge, darker toned myths and legends, and especially ones with the devil and dark magic.... A lot of inspiration is also from photography, or I just created my own folklore within the world so everything fits together in terms of gameplay, lore, and so-on.
Q: What made you want to work with setting the game in the Alps?
A: The Alps is just a setting that is underused and very close to me. From being there, reading about it, seeing pictures of it, it’s just so evocative. The steepness of it, playing there as a child, finding hidden areas, walking up rivers, climbing. It’s full of these little hidden places and that’s kind of an idea I like- hidden things. The atmosphere is just this mood of oppression, it reminds me of some early Swiss black and white films.... It’s an immense beauty that can be both intense and even unsettling.
Q: There are lots of goats in the promotional imagery, is there anything more to that?
A: Goats are just the best. Whenever you see them, it’s great. They are so strange looking, their horns, they have strange eyes, their pupil is just a stripe. I had the idea of the corporal having these goats and living in the bunker with him, because it would be a funny place to have so many goats. But then they took on their own life, and they ended up helping and leading the player in a fun way. I love goats, grazing with their bells, there’s something about it. Also the horns, there’s symbolism there.
Q: Why choose the pencil drawn artstyle?
A: I just love drawing with pencil, and drawing on paper in general. It’s very natural for me rather than working digitally. Graphite is a very cool material. You can do dark colors, fine lines, you can use the eraser. I love this part of the experience and it makes good on some of the more annoying or mundane things about programming and troubleshooting. It allows me to take a resource and translate it into pencil, which adds a dark tone that’s ideal for this game. It feels like it’s part of the process of creating the game, and I hope that it comes across. The main reason is that I love it.... There’s also randomness to drawing and scanning, it adds an element of surprise, and some of the best things come from that natural and random process.
Q: How authentic are the environments?
A: I was thinking about doing it realistic at first, but it doesn’t work too well for a game. For this kind of game it has to be condensed. You will have an environment that feels the same as the Alps, but... it is more about evoking the feeling. I took thousands of photos on location, always finding things to add, especially details. It helps to sell it as a very specific place.
Q: You talk about exploring the Alps as a child, but why did you choose to go a darker direction with that inspiration?
A: While my childhood exploration in the Alps was mostly pleasant, I'm really interested in what could be imagined to be hidden behind a beautiful landscape. Does a place have a darker history that starkly contrasts with its serenity and quaintness? Can it happen that it comes to the surface again, like an old stain? I like to twist things a bit, take something real and remove it a few notches from reality. That's how the Alps in Mundaun ended up being a pretty spooky and supernatural place.
[END]
Mundaun will launch in early 2021 on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.