The Best War Games can exclusively share the reveal trailer for Concierge, an upcoming indie horror game featuring surrealist motifs, a mystery-driven narrative, and some fairly bold creative direction. Even its gameplay appears somewhat unorthodox, focusing on several features not too many modern horror games do.
A debut title from small indie developer Kodino, Concierge is not to be confused with The Concierge, a 2017 game developed by Dan Kenny. While both were conceived as psychological horror experiences with a clear admiration for The Shining and some other cinema classics, Kodino's upcoming PC title embraces surrealism even more wholeheartedly, promising high strangeness throughout.
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A week after the game's Steam page went live, publisher Digital Tribe premiered the official announcement trailer for Concierge, which The Best War Games can exclusively reveal. While it's advertising a game with meticulous exploration that emphasizes slow buildup of dread, the trailer is fairly fast-paced, showcasing an impressive amount of locations, characters, and lore mysteries relative to its 74-second runtime. The overall video is deliberately disorienting, teasing Concierge's uncanny atmosphere with disjointed sequences full of unease.
Concierge Trailer Ends On a Century-Old Note
Adding to the pervasive sense of strangeness, the trailer concludes with Kentucky Dream Waltz by Nicholas Orlando’s Orchestra. First recorded in 1919, this piece of light classical dance music was originally scored to evoke a keen sense of nostalgia and dreamlike sentimentality. However, juxtaposed with the trailer's chaotic imagery, the composition heightens the disorientation, lending the video a distinct out-of-time quality—especially since the unexpected old-timey melody begins only as the screen fades to black.
Concierge May Offer Decent Replay Value for a Horror Game
A significant portion of Concierge is said to play like a classical point-and-click adventure—maybe minus the pixel hunting that so many 20th-century games insisted on. However, Kodino insists that any single label is insufficient to describe its upcoming title, which will consistently alternate between a wide range of mechanics. As a result, Concierge aims to deliver an "unpredictable, genre-agnostic variety of gameplay," its Steam page reads. The same source promises a non-linear story designed in a way conducive to replay value—something that not too many horror games prioritize.
Despite its unnerving atmosphere full of "serial killer's next victim" vibes, Concierge will also include lighter moments. "Meet some funny animals with funny animal problems," reads the game's feature list on Valve's storefront, standing in stark contrast to the bizarre and unnerving imagery featured all around it on the same page. As for the main story, it centers on a snowbound man trying to find a way out of a place that's equal parts peculiar and perilous. Concierge will feature zero hand-holding, leaving it up to the players to figure out what to do. While it's still without an official release date or even window, the surrealist genre hybrid is advertised as coming soon, and can already be wishlisted on Steam.