There’s no shortage of movies crossing over into video game genre — and there’s certainly not a lack of it happening the other around either — but every now and then, you find a combination that gives you pause. French video game publisher Microids announced on Saturday that Pendulo Studios, known for their graphic adventure games such as Blacksad: Under The Skin, Yesterday, and Runaway, is developing a game based on Alfred Hitchcock’s visual masterpiece Vertigo. According to Xbox, the game is “freely inspired by the movie masterpiece” rather than a direct adaptation, and will focus on allowing players to “immerse [themselves] in a psychological thriller of a new kind, playing with the limits between reality and fantasy.”
Whereas the 1958 classic follows retired police officer John “Scottie” Ferguson, who quits the force after witnessing another officer’s death and developing an intense fear of heights that induces vertigo, the upcoming game tells a very different story. Vertigo follows Ed Miller, a writer who was supposedly traveling with his wife and daughter when the family got into a severe car accident. Even though no one apart from Miller was found in the wreckage, he insists his family was with him, and begins a descent into madness. In a seemingly Alan Wake fashion, the story follows Miller as he tries to make sense of what has happened and recover his family.
According to Vertigo‘s Steam listing, the game allows players to “experience a powerful narrative experience paying tribute to the visual and storytelling techniques of the thriller genre, investigate through the vision of three characters, and explore several timelines to cross-check the events and separate reality from deceptive memories.”
As of right now, there is no release date for Vertigo, but the trailer did say that the game was coming soon.