If you’re looking for an atmospheric, classic indie horror, you’ve come to the right place.
If you’re a horror-genre fan then I have an underrated treat for you. This single-player, FPS horror-adventure indie game that was started in 2014 was released on the 16th of March 2021 and yet almost no one knows about it. It is currently available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S & Series X, and PC; developed by Hidden Fields on Unity engine and published by MWM Interactive.
What Is Mundaun?
Simply, Mundaun is described as a unique aesthetic, ardently “hand-penciled” horror title with a dark and gloomy setting amidst a valley in the Alps. Just note that to add to the immersion of the game, it has been entirely dubbed in Romansh (Switzerland’s fourth national language).
This charming little horror begins with an impression of bare minimal simplicity when looking at it but you will come across four various types of enemies (a floating beekeeper, a hay monster, a zombie-Esque soldier, and a snow creature that summons avalanches) throughout this short game in the different areas that you explore. These enemies can be thwarted with your weapons (such as a pitchfork and rifle), warded off with a lantern, or avoided through stealth, there is however the option to play through the entire game without killing a single enemy.
You will make your way up the mountain by means of walking, driving a truck, or using a sled and while you’re at it, remember to explore the world as you will find all kinds of notes that elaborate on the context of Mundaun’s world, items and keys which will…well, unlock doors, but also assist in solving the scattered environmental puzzles (one of the puzzles involve hitting slabs of meat in a specific order to progress).
There is of course also an upgrade system that is divided into three categories, namely: health, sanity, and marksmanship.
Nearing the end of the game there will also be some choices that need to be made in order to reach one of the five endings and although this is a superb little game, it will take anywhere between 5 and 9 hours to play through, depending on how thoroughly you want to explore.
Development of Mundaun
As mentioned above, everything that we see was hand-drawn, and to put the game together the development team scanned the sketchbook drawings and applied them to 3D models. The reasoning behind the choice to make this a hand-drawn concept was that it gave a much “darker” and “aesthetically horror-Esque” atmosphere, or as it was put because “it made everyday objects seem like dark, oppressive things”. Many of the locations that you will traverse are modelled after real-life places in Switzerland, which is fitting seeing as though the developing team is Swiss.
According to Michel Ziegler (the director of Mundaun), the inspiration comes from works such as The Black Spider and The Shining. A lot of the lore of the game is also based on real folklore, including the decapitated head of the goat Allegria.
System Requirements
They also took the liberty of adding a “streamer mode” which hides any licensed music during your stream.
MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7 (64-bit OS required)
Processor: Intel Core i3-6100 or AMD FX-6300
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 or AMD Radeon HD 6850
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 5 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectSound (DirectX 9.0c)
RECOMMENDED:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit OS required)
Processor: Intel Core i5-7400 or AMD Ryzen 1600
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 570
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 5 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectSound (DirectX 9.0c)