Silent Wounds: The Doll ready for playing with on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Hour-long free first installment of a planned horror anthology available now for Windows PC

Beware studios who come bearing gifts of free dolls! Not that well-intentioned freebies are unwelcome, but there may be more to it than first meets the eye – like in Silent Wounds: The Doll, a free first installment of a planned horror anthology from Lexip Games, creators of Them and the Silence Channel series.

It's 1987 when a man named Victor returns home from five years in Paris with an obsession: a life-sized doll of what he believes to be the "perfect woman." The problem is (well, one of many) is that Victor's already engaged. His real flesh-and-blood fiancée Clara is very concerned about Victor, and for good reason. As Victor seeks to carry on a happy domestic home life with his inanimate new companion by isolating himself in his apartment, the "fragile boundaries between his reality and his pathological obsession begin to crumble." It seems perhaps some romances just aren't destined to last. 

Each game in the Silent Wounds series is intended to stand alone as part of a "short-form psychological horror anthology that delves into the deepest recesses of the human psyche." The debut episode's Edgar Allan Poe-like "claustrophobic journey" of its tortured protagonist is designed to be a "bite-sized, one-hour narrative experience" steeped in an atmosphere of dread and fear instead of jump scares or physical danger. When Victor becomes stressed by "strange, unexplainable occurrences," he'll need to find comfort in his doll – if he can find her, that is, as she may not always be where he left her last. As you uncover new story details through phone calls with Clara and "meticulously reading letters and journal entries," gameplay will focus primarily around everyday household tasks like "arranging objects, preparing the dinner table, and cooking meals (including spaghetti, Victor’s signature dish)." It's not purely a walking simulator, however, as there will be puzzles to solve too that will "challenge your logic and observation skills to progress through the nightmare." 

You shouldn't expect its series successors to be similarly gratis, but Silent Wounds: The Doll is available completely free of charge, and can be downloaded now from Steam for Windows PC. 

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