If you need to borrow a cup of sugar, just deal with it because your neighbor laid a bear trap on the welcome mat and already dug a grave. The pie can wait.
Hello Neighbor, a new horror stealth game from Dynamic Pixels, can make such a domestic pie-free nightmare a reality when it releases sometime next year. Just announced by publisher tinyBuild, Hello Neighbor is a pretty unique take on stealth horror, pitting you against a single AI character in their house. Your goal is to find out what they're hiding in the basement, but they won't make it easy.
The mustachioed AI neighbor apparently "learns from your every move," which is an intriguing, but pretty vague claim. As the Steam page description puts it, "Really enjoying climbing through that backyard window? Expect a bear trap there. Sneaking through the front door? There'll be cameras there soon. Trying to escape? The Neighbor will find a shortcut and catch you."
Will we be dealing with an aggressive hunter AI, a la Alien: Isolation or something else entirely? If the gifs and trailer are any indication, it looks like we'll be able to use most physics objects to our advantage. Toss a tomato at the window, sneak in through the back, block off dangerous doors with chairs, and steal a few bear traps while you're at it. The same tricks just might not work twice.
While most of the real sleuthing will take place in the Neighbor's house, Dynamic Pixels is aiming for over 10 hours of play, including story-driven levels that take place somewhere beyond the neighborhood.
Conceptually, I love the idea. A stealth game focused in a small sandbox environment with a single AI could make for some really tense, emergent horror. I just hope the systems are as great as they sound.
Signups for a playable alpha are already open, and Dynamic Pixels plans on releasing new builds regularly. Plenty of time to practice stealing sugar.
