We’re two thirds of the way through Skeleton Appreciation Month! Time flies when you’re cowering in the corner, terrified of the bony horrors that lurk within your own body. If you’re not quite scared enough, here’s one more thing to spook you.
On top of recently re-launching spooky MMO The Secret World as free-to-play, Funcom are being extra generous with the treats this year. They’ve just made Hide and Shriek – their one-on-one online game of stealth and jumpscares – completely free, down from its previous $6 price tag.
Prefer your mystical menaces visible and slow-moving? Get your zombie freak on.
Sharing a setting with The Secret World, Hide and Shriek depicts an annual contest between two eldritch academies. On Halloween, two students from the rival schools turn themselves invisible and go on a scavenger hunt for mystical orbs. You win if you bring ten back to your altar. Simple enough, right?
Being a magical teenage jerk has its perks. Among them: Runic magic – gather spell components around the map, and use them to place traps. Glyphs that hold your target, make a sound as they pass through, temporarily restore them to visibility and so on.
With your target located, you can pounce on them and give them a good ol’ jumpscare. Three successful scares and you win. Plus, while the students are invisible, the orbs themselves aren’t – see a glowing ball floating through the air? Move in for the kill.
Obviously this is a game best played with a friend (and possibly voice-chat so you can know when you really got them), but making the game free should ensure a steady stream of random strangers to spook, should you want to lurk the halls of Innsmouth Academy yourself.
Hide and Shiek is now free for all. Grab it on Steam here. Also sharing the same setting are solo horror adenture The Park (£10/$13), and Secret World Legends, their F2P MMO re-launch.