World of Horror Trailer Shot
Image: panstasz, Ysbrd Games & Playism

There's no game quite like WORLD OF HORROR. Simultaneously a tribute to Junji Ito's classic horror manga work, a love letter to the monochrome worlds of Mac-era adventures, and a challenging roguelike that draws inspiration from 'legacy' style tabletop games where each adventure draws on a pool of parts and decks that open more over time. And today, there's more of it, as the game receives its first major update - As Above, So Below - in three years.

For those who haven't played it before, World of Horror mashes together the uncanny small-town Japanese horror of Junji Ito's art with Lovecraftian cosmic tales, as cults summon their ancient alien gods to draw the town into chaos. Each run of the game has you investigating several seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents, each one (if handled successfully) giving you another piece of the puzzle needed to stop a dark ritual threatening the town. Of course, each case is likely to leave scars (mental or physical) on your character, making each finale especially dramatic as perks and flaws play against each other.

There are several new stories, and even more bad-news rituals going on in this update. You can see the full patch notes here, although it's intentionally vague because stumbling your way through the game's many horror stories is half the fun. There are two new elder gods to challenge, plus for players who thought the game was too easy, there's a new extra-hard challenge scenario where four gods are active simultaneously, turning the town into a truly cursed hellscape.

There are three new playable characters to throw into the meatgrinder (or recruit as NPC buddies), including a tarot-reader (with a deck-reading mechanic!) and a hiker who gets advantages in out-of-town situations. The third character is left mysteriously undescribed, but I'm guessing they'll require some shenanigans to unlock.

There are also some new prologue scenarios, playable as standalone adventures set before the main game, with new mechanics, including an adventure following film student Makoto on their mission to film a documentary on an old local forest legend. We've also got some new enemies, events, spells, curses and more added to the regular game. All told, adding up to about 20% more game. This could easily have been paid DLC, but as a free update, I'm sure not complaining.

Lastly, the update adds improved mod support, letting the community take over and produce more of everything. While there had been Steam Workshop support for a while, the community has been a little limited in what they could produce, but it seems like they're being given access to almost all the tools used to author this new slab of game.

The big update is live now, and World of Horror is 25% discounted from its usual £16.75/$20 price tag for the Steam Scream sale, running until November 2nd. There's nothing quite like it - it comes highly recommended.