Interview: EXORCISE THE DEMONS Will Be A Thrilling Coop Horror

Cooperative horror is the genre that keeps on growing with new launches featuring different styles, aspects, goals, horrors, and difficulties. Recently popular launches include Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th.

But I have found one of the best upcoming versions to this genre when I learned all about Exorcise the Demons through my interview with Midnight Games! They are hoping to launch as early as Q4 of 2017 on Steam!

This game is going to make players work together to complete rituals that will, well, exorcise the demon that they are facing during the round. But it will also have a single player open and will have a stock of over 120 different demons!

Gameplay Breakdown

The first player, in-game, will play as an exorcist and will accomplish rituals to ban the demon haunting the place. The other players, not looking at the screen, will have to scroll through the Book of Rituals, containing all the necessary information to complete those rituals correctly. The gameplay relies completely on the faculty the players will have to communicate, making Exorcise The Demons a social and immersive game that will put a huge strain on the player’s friendship!

Interview with
Jean-Raphaël (JR) and Sophian Atigui

What inspired you to make this game?
Atigui: "Well, we had a great time playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes together, and thought that it was cool that a game could offer different ways and supports to experience it at once!

So, we had this idea to make our interpretation of such gameplay, added with inspiration from rather dark fantasy universes we are fond of. We got our inspiration by the Lovecraftian literature, The Witcher universe, and Constantine (Hellblazer) comics!

…And maaaaaybe a cheesy touch coming from the Charmed TV-series haha"

What platforms will it be available on?
Atigui: "For now, Exorcise the Demons will be available for PCs, on Steam. We really want to add VR support too! And when the game is released, in a longer-term perspective, we would love to develop the game for the PlayStation and Nintendo Switch platforms."

Will there be any single player or training/practice options?
JR: "All the content in Exorcise the Demons will be playable in solo, or in multiplayer! If you chose the single player option, the only change is that the single player will be able to access the Book of Rituals directly in-game. Exorcise the Demons is being developed to privilege a social gaming experience with your friends, but if you’re a lone wolf, we won’t leave you on the side. We want the players to have satisfactory experience of winning through sweat and blood haha.

More seriously, in the game’s free mode it will be possible to customize the settings of your game if you want to ease up the mood, or train a bit."

Can you explain the experience players can expect from playing your game?
JR: "Being huge fans of coop games, we want the players to experience everything we expect from a cooperative experience.

First, the thrill of challenge. As a coop player, what’s more satisfactory than to overcome all obstacles when you team up with your partners in crime? Much stress and fun will come out of this!

Also, we expect the players to experience the struggle of communicating their way out of complex situations. You try this mission for the first time, and you fail? Well it’s your own fault. You’ll just have to think it through, and build up a better way of sharing the information among your party. Failure is a good teacher!

Finally, it is important to us that the player feels the environment and all the story behind it. There is a narrative purpose in this game (not only in the story mode), and we want immersion to drive the players to dig it up."

Despite the random map generation, how many different demons and endings are possible per game? 
Atigui: "At the end of each game, different endings and “finish moves” will happen, it’ll depend on how you dealt with each ritual, among other conditions, that will influence the result of your performance!

There will be tons of different demons, inspired from many different mythologies: Nordic, Egyptian, Voodoo… Among others!"

How many different demons will the game feature?
JR: "When you accomplish each ritual, you gather information about the demon you must face. The rituals will be procedurally generated in their own category, so in each game played, depending on the variations of each ritual, you will identify a specific demon.

With all those variations considered, you can face 120 different demons for now."

Can you end up face to face with a demon?
JR: "Yes, when you’re done with the rituals, the demon will come by to say hi!"

Are there any customization options?
Atigui: "In the free game mode, the players have the possibility to change various settings. For instance, they can customize the time constraints, the overall difficulty of the rituals, the amount of rituals to accomplish, and also the number of mistakes you can afford before losing the round!

So you can customize many settings on the free game mode… Or you can let the game decide about these for you, if you dare!"

Check out their trailer:

Overall I think this game is going to have a unique cooperative horror gameplay style to offer and may be one of the next best games to play with a friend! They have even said that they will have a fully narrated Story mode with 25 levels and that only one game copy is required to play with friend, so split screen will actually be an option this time!

If you want to help make this game happen, check out their Kickstarter. You can follow more on the games development, check out their Facebook and Twitter.