Gothic fantasy-FPS Witchfire announced at Game Awards, new IP coming from The Vanishing of Ethan Carter team

By James Billcliffe

Announced at The Game Awards, Witchfire is a gothic fantasy-FPS from Polish game studio The Astronauts, who also developed The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Last night we got a world premier trailer for their latest game, which showed off some of the its lush, Unreal Engine-powered environments and menacing, demonic-looking enemies.

With Witchfire, The Astronauts are looking to push some of the tech they used in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter even further, including photogrammetry techniques that let them 3D scan real-world objects and use them as digital assets in-game.

Witchfire is only confirmed to be coming to PC so far, and there’s no set release date – with the game’s chief developer Adrian Chmielarz hinting that it could be more than a year away.

“The reason we’re launching the teaser so early is simply to let everyone know that we’re alive and kicking, and how radically different this new project of ours is compared to our previous game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter,” he said.

“That change in direction isn’t anything new for the core team, though. The three co-owners of The Astronauts were also the co-owners of People Can Fly, as well as the creative leads behind shooters like Painkiller and Bulletstorm. While Witchfire is also a shooter, we’re aiming to make a game unlike anything we have done in the past, both in tone and in game mechanics.”