Bloober Team certainly appears to be the busiest horror studio in the business right now. Off the back of its 2024 Silent Hill 2 remake selling over 5 million copies, the Polish developer currently has a staggering seven horror games in various stages of production. During Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show in Bangkok last week, IGN sat down with Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno to get an insight into the secrets to his studio’s success, its ambitious plans for the future, and why horror has become such a bankable genre in recent years.
“I would say that horror is always at its strongest when something bad is happening to the world,” said Babieno. “When we have climate changes, when we have wars, [or] when we have some economical issues in the world. This is the moment when society [has] some kind of fear inside.”
“That’s why horror movies, horror novels, and horror games are working so well,” he continued. “It’s working for horror, but I’m not happy about it because it always means that the world is not in good shape.”
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Babieno is obviously not wrong. Humanity is currently faced with a global cost of living crisis, increasingly volatile weather events, ongoing wars between Russia and Ukraine and the U.S. and Iran, and the existential threat posed by the rapidly accelerating adoption of AI across virtually every major industry.
At the same time, the horror genre has rarely been hotter across most entertainment mediums. Indie horror films Backrooms and Obsession became major success stories at the box office earlier this year, with the latter going on to make over half a billion dollars. The Resident Evil series continues to be one of the most dominant brands in the genre, with its latest video game instalment Resident Evil Requiem selling 8.5 million copies since its launch in February, and its latest big screen adaptation from Weapons director Zach Cregger quickly becoming the highest-grossing Resident Evil movie ever.
The surging popularity of spooks and scares has also spread to many popular streaming services. Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie performing strong enough on Prime Video in order to be renewed for a second season. Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake has apparently become one of Peacock’s biggest scripted original series. Meanwhile Apple’s Widows Bay is one of the most celebrated TV shows of the year – horror or otherwise – snaring a whopping 14 Emmy Awards in September.
Even comic book movies are turning to the genre, with the DCU’s thoroughly disturbing Clayface enjoying a strong opening weekend in October. Public domain characters have also proved to be ripe for the picking, with two Winnie the Pooh slasher movies already released and a third one on the way in January.
However, Bloober Team is no bandwagon-jumper. Although the foundational years of the studio were spent producing a mix of casual games and contract work, the developer has been singularly focussed on becoming a specialist house of horror since it launched Layers of Fear in 2016. In the decade since, Bloober has steadily risen to become one of the most trusted conjurers of fear and dread in videogames, proving to be equally adept at reimagining licensed properties as it is at establishing new IPs of its own.
“There are a lot of great horror game developers in the world; we are one of them,” said Babieno. “We’re trying to focus [purely] on creating horror so that’s why the iteration process allows us to work not just on the formula [for creating fear], but on the technological aspect of creating games.”
“Also understanding our fans. Understanding what we did wrong and how we could improve. Project by project we are always thinking, ‘is this the next step for the studio? Is this the next step for our fans?’ Because if it’s not, you don’t want to waste four years of your life creating a new title.”
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While Babieno’s team has become attuned to listening to its dedicated fanbase, it’s also learned to ignore its detractors online. Not unlike the undeserved backlash that Zach Cregger was forced to endure prior to the release of his Resident Evil movie, Bloober Team faced plenty of scrutiny from Silent Hill diehards when it was hard at work remaking Silent Hill 2. However, Babieno makes it clear that his team had complete confidence in their ability to reimagine the Konami classic to a standard that would be embraced by even its harshest of critics.
“At the beginning we suffered a lot of hate from fans,” said Babieno. “But we did the one thing which any studio who is trying to create something great is able to do: focus on the project, focus on delivering the best quality game, and put the noise around it out of our head.”
“So this is what we tried to do; we believed from the very beginning that we’d be able to achieve this and it happened. Silent Hill 2 was a pivot point for Bloober Team.”
Silent Hill 2’s subsequent critical and commercial success is likely a big part of the reason that Bloober Team now finds itself in such hot demand and experiencing a period of expansion at a time when so many other studios in the industry are suffering cuts and closures. Bloober Team is currently composed of two first-party studios, and has recently added the second-party Broken Mirror Games, a label that it uses to co-develop games with five other Polish development teams. A remake of the original Silent Hill, Layers of Fear 3, Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive Onyx: The Dark Grip, and Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, a psychological horror game set in Gene Roddenberry’s beloved sci-fi universe, are four of the seven games currently in development that have been confirmed so far.
Babieno was unable to comment on the recent Silent Hill leak that suggested it would be released in 2027 and star Gabrielle Fritz and Jade Matthew – when prompted, he dismissed the details as “rumors.” He also couldn’t reveal much about Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, other than agreeing with publishing partner Paramount Games Studio’s goals for it to be “the best Star Trek game of all time,” by stating simply that he wouldn’t be working on it if he “didn’t have such a fight.”
However, Babieno was keen to share his enthusiasm for Project H, the working title for the next game from the team behind 2025’s Cronos: The New Dawn. Although according to Babieno the project is only in the late stages of pre-production, he seems confident that it will represent yet another stride forward for the studio.
“This project is like a huge step from Cronos and from our previous titles so it will deliver a new kind of experience,” said Babieno. “But at the same time it will be very familiar to everyone who [has] already played Bloober Team games. So we will still keep our DNA in it, but we will show this in a completely fresh new way.”
Ultimately for Babieno, the ambition for Bloober Team and where it sits in the booming horror genre seems clear.
“I love Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and I feel that there is a place for a third huge horror IP as well,” said Babieno. “I think we’re on the right track with everything we’re creating. You can feel that Bloober Team’s games are a little bit different [to] those that are already available on the market.”
“The most important [goal] for me is to set new milestones in the game industry.”
Bloober Team’s next release is DLC for Cronos: The New Dawn. Dubbed Cronos: Lazarus, this story expansion serves as a prequel to the events of the main game and will apparently present players with a “faster, more aggressive style of combat.” Cronos: Lazarus is set to release on December 3 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, with the Nintendo Switch 2 version launching sometime in early 2027.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN based in Sydney, Australia. He has 25 years of experience covering video games, having served as Deputy Editor on Official PlayStation 2 Magazine Australia and as Editor of Official Xbox 360 Magazine Australia, before joining IGN in 2009. You can find him on Bluesky @tristanogilvie.bsky.social
