No Return, a New Psychological Horror, Coming Fall 2022 [IGN]

The debut game from Chinese studio BlameTech follows in the footsteps of Silent Hills teaser, P.T. in that it’s about a man caught in an infinitely looping version of his own home. There are never-ending corridors, but with lashings of Chinese folklore, and mysteries to solve.

Check out the trailer below:

The game, set in modern-day China, sees a man returning to his home and becoming stuck in a never-ending loop that reflects a mysterious family tragedy. “No Return tells a story of a broken home,” says the official description. “As one recollects memory fragments, not all memories are welcoming. Just like tearing a band-aid repeatedly on an open wound, you cannot avert your eyes from this cruel and painful experience.”

Clearly, No Return has borrowed a few tricks from other successful horror franchises. The unnerving video static is reminiscent of The Ring, with missing persons posters plastered down the hallways setting an ominous scene. Soon enough, the ever-shifting layout of your once-familiar home sets an eerie tone, with jump scares and creepiness abound. Something is clearly very wrong here. It’s up to you to find out what.

Solving the mystery Silent Hill-style is very much the name of the game, but No Return is steeped in Chinese folklore, with household items forming a connection between the living and the dead. Simply placing the right items in the right places can cause your entire reality to shift around you. That should make puzzle solving a rather unique experience.

No Return is the debut title for indie developer BlameTech (published by TikTok creator ByteDance’s game publishing arm, Pixmain) – a group of six creatives and developers from Hangzhou, China founded by Lisen Wang and Yuxuan Gao. The team were classmates at the Vancouver Film School, and went onto work for the likes of Tencent and NetEase, before going indie together.

The game, which is aiming for a 3-4 hour runtime, will arrive initially for PC on October 30. You can wishlist it on Steam now.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.