Nemesis: Distress Trailer Showcases Horror Board Game Adaptation

Developers Awaken Realms Digital and Ovid Works have revealed a new multiplayer horror experience called Nemesis: Distress.

Based on the popular Nemesis board game, Nemesis: Distress sees each player choose a character in a certain class. Each class will be able to take advantage of a special set of unique skills that, from a gameplay balance perspective, should be separate but equal.

Every player will also be assigned a secret objective which must be carried out during the duration of a 40-minute scenario. The nature of these objectives can vary wildly. One may ask you to help navigate the ship while another may involve completing a series of interactions.

Occasionally, though, one character may be tasked with taking out their player-controlled crew members. Not every game will feature a player who is assigned the “traitor” role, though, so part of the fun comes from never knowing whether or not there is someone in your party who you should not trust.

What makes that mechanic that much more interesting is the fact that players are not allowed to directly attack each other. Instead, all PvP damage must be caused by triggering certain actions in the environment. For instance, you could set a room on fire or even try to turn other players against each other by making one of them appear to be the traitor.

Further complicating this scenario is the presence of hostile aliens known as Intruders. Not only can the Intruders easily end your run, but it’s possible that the traitor could utilize their presence in order to facilitate your death and complete their own objective.

That sounds like a fascinating concept. We’ve seen hidden traitor concepts in board games before, but with the exception of some relatively niche titles, that’s not a mechanic that we often get to enjoy in video games. We also love the idea that you never truly know whether or not there is a traitor in your game in the first place. That should make it much more difficult to properly organize a strategy amongst the survivors.

Besides, there are simply not enough multiplayer horror games out there. The incredibly popular Dead by Daylight showed that asymmetrical multiplayer horror games can work well when done right, and we’d love to have another game to recommend alongside that modern PC gaming classic.

The bad news is that Nemesis: Distress does not currently have a release date. However, you can now add it to your Steam wishlist. There’s no word at this time whether or not there are any plans to bring this project to consoles when it is eventually released.