Last Updated on Sep 9, 2026 @ 17:38:30 PM.
Prior to the deluge of reveals and announcements of Gamescom 2026, I was lucky enough to chat to the Producer & Creative Director of The Eventide, and ask all the burning questions we have after the initial mysterious reveal. If you’re not aware, The Eventide is the work of three former Bioware developers, who started an indie studio with the intention of telling some unique stories, and this is definitely that.
The Eventide, a singe player game where you’re in control and responsible for investigating ghoulish goings on, assigning the right detectives to the right cases, and hopefully finding out the truth, or not, all wrapped up in a striking artistic style and fixed camera perspectives.
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The Eventide Introduction
Firstly, thanks so much for your time. For those unaware, would you mind explaining who you are, and what you do?
I am Kaelin Lavallee, and along with Kris Schoneberg and Francis Lacuna, we make up Studio Reset. Currently, we’re developing our first title, The Eventide. My role is largely on the narrative/writing and production side of things.
Can you talk a little about what exactly The Eventide is?
The Eventide, as a game, is a single-player supernatural mystery. It’s our homage to the point-and-click adventure games we used to play, combined with our love of mystery and deduction games. Within the game though, The Eventide refers to something else entirely. I don’t want to give it away – where’s the mystery in that?!
What has influenced The Eventide? Other games, books, films, even poems?
I don’t even know where to start with this one! All three of us have been big fans of mystery, investigation, and deduction games: The Case of the Golden Idol (and its sequel), The Seance of Blake Manor, The Roottrees are Dead. On the film front, I’m a big fan of a lot of the works from Blumhouse – Insidious in particular. I’m also really drawn to Nicolas Winding Refn’s works. From prose: I have always loved Robert Service. ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’ has stuck with me since childhood. And, lastly, a lot of inspiration is drawn from family stories, which makes this incredibly personal for me.
How does The Eventide present itself? It is a deep, dark and unsettling vibe, or something campy and more fun?
Certainly more of the former in regards to the aesthetics and subject matter. However, through the characters interacting with each other, or reacting to what is happening, we are able to introduce moments of levity and light.
Parallax Deduction and Comparisons
Can you talk a little more in depth about the Parallax Deduction system?
Internally, one of the tag-lines or guiding statements we use is “Everyone sees the world differently.” Parallax deduction is our way of realizing that statement through gameplay. It takes our past experience working on titles where party members each have unique viewpoints on the plot, the world, and each other, and combines it, quite literally, with the way the camera presents their perspective. So each agent has a different angle to investigate a scene, and each will have a different opinion on what clues mean and how to use it.
Some people may draw comparisons between this and R.I.P.D, the iconic comic series. Is that a fair comparison, and how does The Eventide differ?
That’s an interesting comparison – one I hadn’t thought of! Agents in The Eventide, compared to R.I.P.D., are not themselves dead. I think that’s the biggest difference – that and in The Eventide the detectives aren’t enforcing any sort of law. The Eventide isn’t quite so black and white as “good vs. evil”.
The case assignment aspect sounds similar to how Dispatch handles its shift-style hero assigning. Is this fair? Will there be similar aspects?
Yes, and no. Yes, in the sense that a player has to take into account the location and case type, agent abilities, and agent perspective. One of the biggest differences between agent assignment in The Eventide and Hero assignment in Dispatch, is that we have no individual character stats. We don’t measure an agent’s strength, speed, charisma, or any other discrete stat explicitly.
To draw another comparison, Disco Elysium allows the player a lot of freedom to investigate what they want, how they want, and ultimately draw their own conclusions, rightly or wrongly. Is this something you’ll be aiming for with The Eventide?
Yes! Very similar! The noir genre leans into moral ambiguity and letting the viewer/reader/player/listener to decide for themselves what they believe. We want to afford players that same agency. There are certain truths about the events that are investigated, but the interpretation of those events can be left up to the player.
The Matter of Cases
What happens if you get a case wrong?
There really isn’t a way to get a case wrong – there are just degrees of correctness, like I mentioned earlier. It will be up to players to decide if they are happy with what they have, or try different approaches.
Talking of cases, can you give us some sort of example of the type of cases we’ll be investigating, and how they present in-game?
We’re not quite ready to divulge that information. It’s always a tricky balance with a mystery game – how much do you reveal ahead of time without spoiling any of the actual mystery?? Instead, what I will say is that the way to resolve the mystery is through unredacting the case report itself.
Are you able to pick and choose what cases to investigate and when, or is it a linear progression for the player to follow?
Players are free to pick and choose a case from a growing pile that is available to them.
You’ve revealed three agents so far. How many agents should players expect in the final roster?
We have plans for at least two more, but I have ideas for so many more.
One of those is Eve, a cryptozoologist. A profession that looks for unexplained and legendary animals, monsters and the like. Should we expect to run into Big Foot, Loch Ness or any other iconic and well known entities?
Well, part of each case involves identifying what type of phenomenon you are dealing with. I don’t think I should go about giving the answers to the test here with specifics…but yes, there will be known types of supernatural occurrences. Or are they supernatural?
Are you able to ‘train’ the agents, and ultimately get them better at the job, or are they ‘stuck’ with their initial, unique attributes?
The detectives don’t “level up” like party members in a traditional RPG, no.
Supernatural Stuffs
The supernatural aspects indicate ghosts and ghouls. How far are you going to push that?
Our decision to have a fixed-camera presentation allows us to push pretty far. We won’t be fighting mobs of ghosts and ghouls. Instead, the experience is more of a slow burn, with increasing unease and dread. I think a lot of great moments in horror come from what you don’t see…until you do.
Will there be any combat present, or deductive investigations?
No combat. No equipping a magic sword or gun from an inventory and hitting ghosts in the face, even though I’m sure that would be fun! Instead, The Eventide is a slower paced game where players can take their time with the puzzles, deductions, and interpretations.
Is it voiced, or entirely text-based?
Alas, entirely text-based. Maybe one day we can do an updated version that includes some voice over work, should the budget allow.
What’s been the most difficult aspect of development so far?
We are just three people. And while we have been fortunate enough to have some significant help from some trusted colleagues, there’s always something new to learn. I wouldn’t say that’s difficult – we’ve been making games for a while now – but it adds a new layer of challenge. For example, I’ve learned a lot over the past few months on putting together an UI for a game. My expertise had always been on the narrative side of things, so while I know what I wanted to accomplish, I didn’t have the immediate knowledge of how to do so properly. Thankfully I have some incredibly patient friends that gave me some tips!
Unreal Engine 5, your engine of choice for The Eventide, has drawn a lot of criticism for being difficult to optimise, resulting in some poorly performing games recently. How are you combating that on your own title?
There are a few ways. First, our decision to go with a stylized art style wasn’t purely for aesthetics and tone (though those were incredibly important to us). That decision also means we aren’t trying to optimize for ultra-hyper-realisitc graphics. Second, we’re a single-player game – we aren’t worried about optimizing for multiple players, or replication of data, or any additional tech overhead that comes with that. Third, we chose Unreal in part because it was the engine most of us were familiar with. I apologize to anyone who had to deal with my old Unity scripting. Kris has done a phenomenal job of creating a wonderfully light technical foundation for us to build on.
AI usage in game development is a contentious issue for a lot of different reasons, for a lot of people, both professionally and for gamers. With that said, is AI being used in the development of The Eventide? If so, on what and to what end? If not, for what reason(s)?
Because The Eventide is primarily being developed for Steam initially, we decided that following Valve’s guidelines to ensure we do not require the Steam badge for AI use was the best approach. Should we eventually develop for other platforms, I think we would still use that same approach.
You’re at an early stage, only now announcing it, but is there a rough release window yet?
We’ve got some ideas on rough windows internally. But one thing I would hate to do to people is announce a timeline, and then not follow through. When we’re closer, we will happily share that info!
And is it just for PC, or consoles too?
Right now we’re focused on PC only. Should our budget change, we would love to bring the game to console players!
For your next read, check out our chat with the Control Resonant devs about their gravity shifting mechanic, or maybe how many viral moments they think they have in the game.
Luke Addison is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Thumb Wars. Having previously been a part of multiple outlets over the years, including building an entire gaming team from nothing to something, he thought it best to forge his own path and answer only to himself. As likely to be found playing the latest game as he is in the kitchen relaxing (by cooking), he always brings the same bold and brash attitude to everything he does, with a heavy leaning on sarcasm and dry wit!
