Given the explosion in popularity that horror games have enjoyed in recent years, some hidden gems can often slip under the radar for many. In 2022, we got one of those with Softstar Entertainment’s The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation, and now, the developer’s moved on to working on its sequel. The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication is making some interesting promises, from its campus horror setting to its focus on exploration, puzzle-solving, and stealth-driven horror gameplay, and so far, it seems to have all the right elements in place. To learn more about the game and how it’s going to build on its predecessor’s foundations, we recently reached out to the folks behind it with a few of our questions. Below, you can read our interview with The Bridge Curse 2’s producer, Williams Wu.
"The biggest learnings are how to make our story and gameplay more accessible to players who are unfamiliar with Asian culture, address difficulty levels, and cater to horror enthusiasts. These are the most valuable insights we learned through our journey of The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation."
The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation was quite well received by its players, but what are the biggest learnings that you’ve taken from it into the development of its sequel?
The biggest learnings are how to make our story and gameplay more accessible to players who are unfamiliar with Asian culture, address difficulty levels, and cater to horror enthusiasts. These are the most valuable insights we learned through our journey of The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation.
Described as a reimagined adaptation of The Bridge Curse 2: Ritual, what sort of a balance does the game strike between paying homage to the film and bringing its own original ideas to the table?
We identify the unresolved characters, events, and elements in the movie, and use the movie’s setting as the basis for the game setting. Then we add our twists in the gameplay which still match the concept and tone of the movie but give a new vibe. The development process can be quite terrifying!
How heavily does The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication de-emphasize combat? Does it introduce any new combat elements, or is it focused primarily on stealth like its predecessor was?
In The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication we incorporate an oil lamp as a passive defense mechanism, providing players with opportunities to escape and prolong their gaming experience. Different types of ghosts correspond to various interactive modes, offering players more enjoyment during gameplay.
The Bridge Curse 2’s campus horror setting is looking like one of its bigger selling points, but how is the game looking to differentiate itself from the first game in this area?
Every school has its own ghost stories, and the atmosphere of each campus is unique. As players delve into the campus environment, they will discover differences from The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation, leading to variations in the gaming experience.
Audio design can be quite a vital part of the experience in horror games, perhaps more so than in most other genres. What should players expect from The Bridge Curse 2 on that front? Specifically, what should players expect on the more powerful current-gen hardware?
We will strive to optimize the hardware to the best of our abilities. To enhance the immersion, we have carefully designed every spatial effect in the game, from the atmosphere to realistic sound effects with dynamic variations and well-acting voiceovers, as well as the dramatic tone behind cutscenes and levels. Hope to bring players a unique sound experience that is different from other horror games.
Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the game be?
8-10 hours.
Given that you have experience working with all the current-gen consoles, I was hoping to pick your brain on some of the differences between them. For instance, where their GPUs are concerned, the PS5 clocks in at 10.28 teraflops, behind the Xbox Series X’s 12 teraflops. In real terms, however, how much of an impact does that difference have during development?
Under the circumstance that the game has been fully optimized, I think both are capable of ensuring excellent game performance, but we place a greater emphasis on the smoothness of overall operation and the quality of graphics presentation, beyond just GPU specifications.
The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth. How can developers take advantage of this, and how does this compare to the Xbox Series X’s 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth?
Indeed, the SSD of the PS5 does provide faster loading speeds for games, particularly during map transitions. Additionally, the PS5’s file decompression speed also appears to be faster, resulting in noticeable differences in mipmap streaming for textures.
Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X boast Zen 2 CPUs, but there is a difference in the processors of both consoles. The Xbox Series X features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz, whereas the PS5 features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz. Your thoughts on this difference?
In theory, within similar architectures, a higher-frequency CPU can offer advantages in certain aspects of gaming. However, in scenarios where games have high graphical demands, the difference in smoothness may not be significant.
"Our goal is to achieve 4K/60FPS on both PS5 and Xbox Series X."
The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60 FPS console. Do you think it will be able to hold up for the more graphically intensive games as this generation progresses?
The Xbox Series S offers a good price-performance ratio within its price range, and most of the games will also be optimized for the Xbox Series S version, ensuring decent performance even on non-4K screens. So yes, we do think it’s capable of holding up games with high graphics.
What frame rate and resolution will the game target on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S?
Our goal is to achieve 4K/60FPS on both PS5 and Xbox Series X.
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