CRISOL: THEATER OF IDOLS

A religion-infused nightmare from the cultural heart of Spain

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Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is an annual tribute to the Passion of Jesus Christ, celebrated by all the Roman Catholic confraternities. For many people in Spain, it means processions, carnivals and joy. For David Tornero, when he was a child, it meant abject terror; the traditional sculptures of The Lady Of Anguish and Saint James The Greater, borne along on parade floats called pasos, struck fear into his heart. “The statues are normally very realistic,” Tornero says. “Jesus, all the martyrs, the Virgin Mary. When I was a kid, it scared me: ‘Imagine the statues came to life and tried to kill you.”

Now the co-founder and creative director of Vermila Studios, Tornero was inspired by these memories when he came up with the earliest concepts for Crisol: Theater Of Idols. The game is set in a twisted reimagining of Tornero’s home country called Hispania; as Gabriel, a detective, you're sent to the tellingly named island of Tormentosa to investigate a series of horrific crimes.

An FPS with the weighty pace of Amnesia: The Bunker and the combat sections of Alien: Isolation,