Cast your mind back to December 2024, and you might remember a fun little tease for Overcooked studio Ghost Town Games’ intriguing – and adorably spooky – co-op adventure Stage Fright. Closing in on two years later, the studio is back with some first proper gameplay ahead of its arrival next year.
Stage Fright, which has been in development for around five years now, follows its protagonists Drew, Blake and Charlie as they embark on a quest to solve an ancient mystery. And that’s pretty much all of the set-up we’re getting for now! What we do know, though, is that Ghost Town Games’ spooky two-player action draws a touch of inspiration from Luigi’s Mansion, as well as coming-of-age adventures like The Goonies and Stranger Things.
As for what that means more specifically, Stage Fright has been designed from the ground-up with communication-driven co-operation in mind. It’s playable online or side-by-side in couch co-op, and sees players working together to overcome escape room-style conundrums and slightly more chaotic moments. It’s also designed to be as approachable as possible, with Ghost Town Games explaining, “The challenge is in the mind, not the finger-tips!”.
“When we set about thinking about our next game,” it writes in its introduction to Stage Fright’s latest look, “we wanted to continue our nostalgic love affair with Saturday nights in and fan the flame for an under-served couch co-op community. We also wanted to protect the one-button accessibility of Overcooked and resist the temptation to introduce dexterity at the expense of inclusivity. But we also wanted to take those Overcooked players out of the confines of the kitchen and off an adventure into a larger, more involving saga.
“In contrast to the fraught urgency of time-based levels, in Stage Fright, players can immerse themselves in a long-form mystery which requires them to work together to solve escape-room like puzzles, tackle strange and perplexing obstacles together and combine their mental agility to figure out what has happened in this strange town filled with odd characters.”
And if you’re wondering how three protagonists work with two players, the idea is you can switch between different pairs as you go, with Stage Fright’s story unfolding from two perspectives – and judging by its new gameplay trailer, it’s shaping up to be a bit of a spooky delight.
Ghost Town Games isn’t talking platforms yet beyond a Steam release, but Stage Fright – which is being published by No Man’s Sky studio Hello Games – is set to arrive in “spring” next year.
