Developer IMGN.PRO has released a launch trailer for their upcoming title Kholat, which has the distinction of being narrated by the true king of Winterfell, Sean Bean. In it, he speaks in his inimitable fashion-
"In the end, the only thing I saw, was a flash. An insufferable burning light. Pain ripping apart my body. I felt it tearing out of my soul. After a while I was nobody. Nothing. The light went out and I vanished into overwhelming darkness. I welcomed the end with delight..."
This of course isn't the first time Sean Bean has narrated a game- he's also the voice behind the wonderful audio-only title Papa Sangre 2, another game that dealt with death and the afterlife.
"The trailer that we have released today is the best short summary of one and half years of our development work, which is finally coming to an end," said Åukasz Kubiak of IMGN.PRO in a statement. "During that time Kholat has undergone the way from an ambitious idea in our heads to a finished game with a few hours of gameplay taking place in an open world, narrated by one of the most famous British actors. There is one thing however, that hasn’t changed from the very beginning – Kholat is a game that doesn’t follow mainstream game design rules but creates its own, which are based on players intelligence and imagination."
They stress that Kholat is more of an experience than a game, although it is inspired by the true events of the "Dyatlov Pass Incident", in which a group of nine hikers died in the mountains on the eastern side of Kholat Syakhl. The spooky thing was how they died- the bodies showed no signs of struggle yet they were broken apart with fractured ribs and skulls, and had apparently ripped through their tents from the inside out in order to escape them. No one survived and there's still no definitive explanation for what happened to them, although in this game you will be able to explore the scene and find out for yourself.
Kholat will be available on June 10 on Steam, although gamers in selected territories (Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom) will be able to find a boxed retail version in store. The game will feature narration in English and Polish, as well as subtitles for French, German, Russian, Spanish, Czech, Hungarian and Portuguese.
For more on Kholat check out the official site here.