Mental health care has improved dramatically over the past 50 or so years, but The Town of Light aims to explore a time when it was not so good. Set in the real-life Volterra Psychiatric Asylum in Tuscany, the game promises an exact visual depiction of the shuttered institution, which was closed by the Italian government in the 1970s.
The game sees you assume the role of Renée, a former inmate who's returned to the ruins of the facility to piece together her past. The developer – which is made up of ex-film and CG producers – says that the game has been inspired by real events, and thus it carries the disclaimer that it's an adult-only experience; it looks seriously dark.
"The game has some difficult moments making it unsuitable for children, but moments which we felt were important to include, doing justice to those who suffered at the hands of a system which was clearly overwhelmed and itself didn't know all of the answers," art director and screenwriter Luca Dalcò told the PlayStation Blog.
Incredibly, the rundown facility is still standing today, and looks just about as harrowing as you'd expect. This sounds like dark material and will be an acquired taste, but video games have the unique power of enabling you to experience things you wouldn't be able to under normal circumstances, and so while this may prove challenging to play, we're eager to see it through all the same.
[source blog.us.playstation.com]
Comments 10
It seems like it will treat the topic of mental health with the respect that it deserves. I couldn't get into Outlast because it did the exact opposite. People with mental illness endured unimaginable treatment in the past and it should not be used for simple shock/horror in my opinion. Those horror games disrespect the people and do a disservice to a topic that still remains stigmatizing for those who have mental illness.
@Bluetrain7 it's a horror game, it's not like it's an historical 100%fact story...
Anyway, this game looks so so interesting, that I'll buy it day one
Its just a record of my childhood
So Outlast? Gross... Oh wait, I meant boring.
Oooo! Sounds fun! Im still shocked by the amount of horror games released on ps4. This is truly MY generation and IT FEELS GREEEAT!
I think this is going for something different to Outlast. It definitely seems like it's going to be more rooted in history, and while the characters are all fictional, they've said that the stories are going to be inspired by real events.
@Bluetrain7 Outlast was science fiction garbage and as far as I could tell full of inhuman monsters, not sure a jump scare video game is where you should be asking for higher moral enlightenment with regard to the historical and current treatment of mental health patients.
Depending on the way this pans out it could be interesting, but knowing its likely to be predominantly the darker side of the human psyche which is explored I will give it a miss.
One thing I will say, the games based on depression or mental health should always come with a health warning and telephone numbers, similar to whats shown at the start and end of tv programmes containing potentially harmful material if watched by the wrong people.
But videogames should all be fun
I think mental health is used poorly in most mainstream games - pretty much anytime you see someone with mental issues it is as a raving lunatic attacking themselves or others. Take Arkham Asylum or Bioshock.
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