From the PC Gaming Show, the team behind the Twin Peaksy adventure game Virginia and Annapurna’s Last Stop has revealed Deepest Fear, a first-person horror-action game that blends an intriguing list of influences.
Citing movies like The Thing, The Abyss, and The Fly, Deepest Fear hopes to capture some of the subversive body-horror and creature-feature elements of the 1980s horror scene while pairing it with gameplay influences that are similarly beloved. Variable State calls the game a metroidvania immersive sim, and looked back on games like Metroid Prime, System Shock 2, and Dead Space to piece together its world.
Set seven miles deep in the ocean, Deepest Fear casts players as Danni Carroll, a survivor aboard a facility called Neptune, where she must fend off inhuman enemies that emerge from the water. Unfortunately for players, Neptune is taking on water, leaving many opportunities for monsters to threaten her and others she encounters during her survival story. Using a “real-time fluid simulation,” monsters can appear from any water source as it sloshes around the doomed facility, making enemy encounters unpredictable while inviting creative problem-solving in the vein of System Shock 2.
The project may sound like a far cry from what the team has made before–those being narrative-adventure games–but Variable State says the game is designed to keep intact the team’s tradition of “confrontational storytelling.” Besides, it’s arguably not even the most surprising game the team has in the works. In 2025, Variable State is also self-publishing Polaris, a co-op shooter with a cel-shaded style.
Deepest Fear will arrive first on PC, but the team suggested future platforms will be announced later.