Trailers! Get your trailers here! They drift over the transom here at Polygon dot com every week, even when it seems the rest of the world has pressed pause. Good trailers are exciting, but the most memorable trailers are weird, and even if one word can’t describe this week’s batch, that’s still a good start.
Our roundup this week is a descent into madness, starting with a stylish survival horror title, a sports/household appliances fusion, and Seinfeld-meets-P.T. Bring me the glands!
Signalis
Who: rose-engine
When and Where: TBA on Windows PC via Steam.
Why: Perhaps a sci-fi survival horror story won’t be as jump-scary from an old-school, room-sized perspective? Signalis, from rose-engine, delivers its chills with a low-resolution style whose inspirations seem to run a gantlet from System Shock and Silent Hill to Ghost in the Shell. Elster, the hero, is “a technician Replika searching for her lost dreams” amongst “surreal retrotech worlds,” according to the Steam page. Gameplay looks like a blend of puzzle-solving and point-and-click combat, with journal entries and other in-world discoveries spooling out the mystery.
Mortal Shell
Who: Playstack
When and Where: Dunno, and PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One.
Why: Wait, what the hell is that evil demon saying? “Bring the glands back to me?” No. Gotta be plans, right? But then the desiccated revenant dude proceeds to rip, well, some kind of glandular thing out of a mummy. Well, OK, then. Mortal Shell, from PlayStack, is formerly known as Dungeonhaven, a Souls-like indie game announced for PlayStation 4 in 2018. Turns out that revenant dude is you, underneath a badass suit of mail, and there’s all kinds of hacking, slashing, and dying to come. But still, what the hell is that demon saying?
Toasterball
Who: Couch Game Crafters
When and Where: Now (Steam Early Access) on Windows PC.
Why: For those who complain that sports video games are just the same thing every year, well, here are sentient toasters playing volleyball. In a deathtrap filled arena. This trailer for Toasterball’s latest update introduces two new match variants, “lava pool,” (the floor is made of molten lava) and “claustrophobia” (the ceiling is made of radial sawblades). Update 1.5.1 also delivers better ball physics and the ability to catch your opponent’s toast “ninja style.”
Sinfeld Chronicles
Who: Rare Bird Interactive
When and Where: This is being made in Dreams, which is available now on PlayStation 4, but the game isn’t done yet.
Why: Last month the Internet discovered Seinfeld: The Horror Game, which was basically P.T. meets the show about nothing, whose characters never learn anything about themselves. In the month since, creators Austin and Colton Stock have retitled their acid trip (presumably to get out of the C&D blast radius) and given it a story trailer. Sinfeld Chronicles, according to Rare Bird Interactive, has only one branching quest line, but “you’ll be able to visit the bakery from Moonstruck [Cammareri Bros. in Brooklyn] and the hotel from Home Alone 2 [Plaza Hotel, Manhattan] on the same street eventually.”
Resident Evil 3
Who: Capcom
When and Where: Now, on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One.
Why: Because after the abject weirdness of Toasterball and Sinfeld Chronicles (plus “Bring the glands back to me,”) we need something a little more … normal to close things out.