I don't think I've ever seen a horror flight sim before. That novelty alone would have gotten me on board to try out the demo for The Hollowing over the weekend, but what launched me straight into playing it was the realization that it's another spinoff from the nerve-wracking Lorn's Lure, one of my favorite games of 2024, from increasingly prolific indie developer Rubeki.

I don't want to spend TOO long describing The Hollowing's demo, because you could be playing it right now, and it's not hugely long. It is, however, a very compelling argument to wishlist the game. You play here as a young network engineer living in an impossibly vast, crumbling sci-fi megastructure. Today's your first day on the job, and you've got to investigate why a nearby communications mast is malfunctioning.

Unfortunately, living in a nightmare megastructure, the only way between stations is by air, in a rickety old single-seater, single-prop plane with limited fuel, flying through thick ochre fog, your way only lit by distantly visible guidance lights. You have also been strongly reminded to check that your helmet's atmospheric seals are intact, because exposure to the spores that pollute the air down here can cause hallucinations and psychological breakdowns, or worse.

This is just a tiny peek at just how much it sucks to be a human in the Rubeki's expanding sci-fi setting. In Lorn's Lure (a first-person platformer and reverse mountaineering adventure), you played as an android - nigh-immortal, strong, capable, and with few things to be genuinely afraid of. And it was STILL terrifying.

In The Hollowing, the very atmosphere can kill you. Running out of fuel can kill you. The wind can kill you. Things on the radio might potentially be able to kill you. And it never ceases to remind you that you are just a tiny speck of dust in a cosmically vast building that might not even have an 'outside'. It's existentially horrifying while being relatively grounded fiction, and I highly recommend you give it a look.

The Hollowing is due out later this year, with no release date locked down yet. But if the setting is interesting, I highly recommend checking out Lorn's Lure (also with a demo) and the demo for the upcoming Meganaut.