A free Halloween gift
Horror games usually charge extra for more horror. World of Horror’s 1.2 update, As Below So Above, is free to every owner of the game on Steam, GOG and itch.io, and it brings the Scenario Mode that the developer itself calls long-awaited.
The developer’s Steam announcement went up on 30 October (14:32 UTC). Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s headline for its own write-up calls the update “20% more horrible”, a figure we’d treat as the outlet’s shorthand: the developer’s post doesn’t give a percentage.
Two Old Gods and a war for Shiokawa
The headline addition is a pair of never-before-seen Old Gods you can choose to reign over Shiokawa. One is Ikt-Yosis, the First Nightmare, who sleeps beneath the mountains and reshapes the world above with “weird weather and wrathful consequences”. The other is the War for Shiokawa: four cults, four eldritch masters summoned at once.
Three new playable characters join the roster, including Kiriko, a tarotist, and Satoshi, a young hiker. The post also lists more events, enemies, items, spells, curses and injuries, plus balance changes, quality-of-life features and bug fixes.
Scenario Mode is the real draw
Scenario Mode adds self-contained stories set before the events of the main game. The first, Forest of Fear / Tapes of Tragedy, follows Makoto, a member of the school AV club who sets out to film a documentary about the forest’s oldest legend. We think this is the most interesting thing in the update: an authored story is a different shape of game from the usual run-by-run dread.
Modders get something too. Version 1.2 brings enhanced modding support on Steam Workshop, so players can create their own enemies, events and mysteries, with extra tools for custom UI and flags. If you like your horror updates in the spirit of No Man’s Sky’s horror-flavoured Forsaken update, or follow how studios pace their big post-launch updates, this is a generous one to watch.
The update is available now on Windows and macOS in all of the base game’s languages, and the developer says it “will be coming to consoles in 2027”. No console date is given. For now this is a PC story, and a good one: a free update that adds a mode, not just more of the same.
