Now, I could easily spend this entire article describing why Jasper Byrne’s Lone Survivor is one of the most underrated games of the last 15 years. Feverish, frightening, and filled with myriad moments of affectionate human drama, it also boasts one of the greatest horror game soundtracks outside of Silent Hill, unsurprising, considering Byrne’s similarly superlative work on the music for Hotline Miami. Remember that dizzying, bassy trance track that plays during the high-score screen? That’s Jasper Byrne. 12 years ago the independent developer announced a new pixel-art RPG with hints of Demon’s and Dark Souls – not long after, Byrne said the game was canceled. But time is a great healer and now, more than a decade later, the project has just been revived.
A dark fantasy RPG that allows you to explore both a lustrous, green overworld and a series of claustrophobic dungeons, Byrne calls their upcoming game New Game Plus. Development was originally started back in 2011, not long before the initial launch of Lone Survivor, but then halted in 2012. The Hotline Miami composer says they informally continued work on the game up until around five years ago when it was stopped completely. Various screenshots of different builds have been shared by Byrne over the years, but now the developer confirms work on New Game Plus has restarted in earnest.
“Feels so fresh after a nearly five-year hiatus,” the developer writes. “I never fell out of love with it, but when Covid started I got too much anxiety about it and made the call to hit pause. I only recently felt brave enough to try, so I’m seeing how it feels to work on again. Let’s see what happens.”
Byrne has shared some fresh images of New Game Plus and confirmed that they are working on a pitch document, and that they’ve just delivered a build of the fantasy game to “someone whose opinion matters a lot to me,” representing the first time that they have sent the project out in more than ten years.
In terms of progress, the developer says that there is “a lot of game already here,” and that the folder size containing all of the original in-progress files was some 60GB – though they have since trimmed this down to 1.5.
We’ll keep you posted on New Game Plus, but in the meantime, if you’re a Resident Evil or Silent Hill, and especially if you want something great to play ahead of the upcoming SH2 Remake, I cannot recommend Lone Survivor strongly enough. You can get the re-released version, Super Lone Survivor, which has additional enemy types, side quests, more crafting options, and an expanded soundtrack right here.
Otherwise, try some of the other best horror games, or maybe the best indie games available right now on PC.
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