You know, with the original Paranormal Activity steadily approaching two decades of existence, it’s becoming harder and harder to recognise what it actually was and is as opposed to the cultural consensus around it. First and foremost you probably think of it as a cheap, jump-scare-filled kind of horror movie, when in actuality the first entry in the series is a slow, tense window into the world of gaslighting and, obviously, the paranormal. Being as removed as we are from this means one thing: IP expansion, which we’re viewing today in the form of the first proper trailer for Paranormal Activity: Threshold, the video game adaptation from the developer behind The Mortuary Assistant.
Let’s set the scene, with some assistance from the game’s description on Steam. Paranormal Activity: Threshold focuses on Daniel and Jessica Stewart, who’ve just decided to remodel their first home. We’re introduced to said home by Daniel, showing a fairly sized if sparsely decorated building that he describes as the only one they could afford. Sure thing Daniel!
The rest of the trailer shows a variety of hauntings and happenings like a shadow moving across the room, a stool sliding along the floor, a door suddenly shutting. There’s some kind of vaguely satanic-looking puzzle you can do, but aside from that it doesn’t really show much of the broader activities you’ll be participating in.
Returning to Steam again, there’s an explanation that you can “play in multiple timelines,” “hunt and communicate with entities,” and “perform demonic rituals to alter your fate.” There’s apparently multiple endings, and the game’s “Paranormal Engine makes every playthrough unique.” My guess is that different playthroughs can have different hauntings as I described above take place randomly, which if I’m right, sounds quite similar to the hauntings you can experience in Silent Hill 4’s pseudo-hub area.
I’ll admit that I feel quite apprehensive about Paranormal Activity getting a game adaptation. I can count the number of good entries in the film series on one hand, but there’s two hands worth of films to count, distorting what it could be if done well. How might a game adaptation deal with such a framework? Is a game even capable of capturing that tactile feel an actual tape presents like in the first film, having you question what’s real and what isn’t? I’m not sure that there’s enough filters in the world to convey such a feeling.
In any case, there’s no release date for Paranormal Activity: Threshold, but you can wishlist it on Steam in the meantime.
