Say Hello to Rules of Engagement: The Grey State's Horrorverse

Grey State Studio recently revealed the debut trailer for its upcoming horror extraction shooter, Rules of Engagement: The Grey State, and it's already shaping up to be a promising new entry in the growing subgenre. There are other horror extraction shooters already on the market, with games like Hunt: Showdown and Witchfire immediately coming to mind, but Rules of Engagement: The Grey State sets itself apart by using an approach the studio is calling the "horrorverse." In essence, Grey State Studio asks why have just one horror story when you can have all of them.

The Best War Games recently sat down with Grey State Studio's head of marketing/communications Bo Chen, as well as Rules of Engagement: The Grey State's lead game designer Ray Fan, to discuss the title's development and the influences that went into its horror elements, with special attention paid to this concept of the "horrorverse." The horror extraction shooter is a fairly limited and specialized pool of games in the subgenre. Rules of Engagement: The Grey State may stand out from its few contemporaries thanks to the "horrorverse" approach that incorporates influences from global horror media.

What Rules of Engagement: The Grey State's 'Horrorverse' Entails

Promotional materials for Rules of Engagement: The Grey State make special mention of the game's setting being what Grey State Studio is calling the "Horrorverse." This "Horrorverse" is a realm populated by supernatural creatures from across folklore, mythology, and media, with everything from Eastern and Western cryptids to iconic Creepypasta monsters represented in the game's rogues gallery. As it turns out, this idea of the "Horrorverse" has an interesting inspiration from a cult-classic 2011 horror film.

Speaking on how Rules of Engagement: The Grey State's "horrorverse" works, Chen recalled,

"We wanted to do a game where we got to build monsters, and since we were making monsters, we asked, 'Why just one kind of monster? Why not have everything? Why not have all types of monsters you can think of?' The original inspiration was from a movie called Cabin in the Woods, where they have this facility with all the monsters you

can think of, and we just thought that was a really cool idea."

With that open-door approach to horror influences, Grey State Studios is also embracing one of its most important goals for Rules of Engagement: The Grey State: variety. Fan points out that "..one of our main goals was definitely having variety. We wanted to experiment with different types of monsters, just to see how these different types of monsters would have different impacts on how you played the game." That mindset helped to drive Rules of Engagement's game design, with Fan again noting, "Our monsters are designed to add more diversity and emergent gameplay elements leading to the PvP side of gameplay."

The 'Horrorverse' Approach Sets Up a Promising Future for Rules of Engagement: The Grey State

Of course, another benefit of leaving nothing on the table when it comes to Rules of Engagement: The Grey State's horror influences is that it creates what the team is calling "infinite possibilities" for future expansion. Similar to games like Dead By Daylight, both Chen and Fan envision Rules of Engagement: The Grey State being primed for crossovers with horror IPs and the inclusion of other iconic monsters that players will instantly recognize from across horror media.

Chen notes that keen-eyed players might recognize Hong Kong architecture and monsters inspired by traditional Chinese mythology in the game's debut trailer, but that Rules of Engagement: The Grey State is aiming to have "inspiration from all around the globe" when it comes to its horror influences and monster designs. Pointing to a bright future, Chen described the overall goal of the game: