Okay, so here’s the thing about HOTEL BARCELONA—imagine SWERY and SUDA51 just threw all their crazy ideas into a blender, and out came this freaky slasher thing that’s landing on your PS5 this September. CULT Games and White Owls are bringing it to life, and honestly, I can’t decide if I’m excited or, like, slightly terrified. But hey, come take a look if you dare.
Anyway! So there’s this hotel—seems fancy at first, right? But it’s literally chilling. Nestled somewhere on the edge between Pennsylvania and West Virginia, this place is a playground for serial killers. No big deal. Justine, our hero-slash-marshal, is on a mission. The catch? She’s sharing brain space with this really creepy dude, Dr. Carnival. Bad vibes all around. Seriously, it’s making my skin crawl just thinking about it.
The gameplay—is it side-scrolling? Well, sorta, but not really. And there are echoes of yourself that help you out after you bite the dust. Those “Slasher Phantoms” are like your shadowy past selves coming to haunt or help you. Not gonna lie, the thought of using your own ghost as a shield is both awesome and disturbing at the same time. And the blood? You wear it like a badge of honor, or like some grotesque power-up. The Skull Gauge—whatever that is—fills up, and then you unleash this unstoppable horror called Carnival Awakening. Sounds like a party! Or maybe not.
Seven different zones, each with a boss that’ll probably mess you up good if you’re not on your toes. Haunted houses, creepy labs, you name it. It’s like they took every horror movie trope and tossed it in here. Pretty wild.
And somehow, in all the madness, we’ve got SUDA51 and SWERY, two legends just vibing together on this gory carnival ride. (Why do I keep coming back to carnivals? Oh, right, Dr. Carnival. Dude’s literally living in my head now.)
So there it is. A tangled, blood-soaked web of chaos waiting for you to dive in. Whether I just hyped you up or warned you off—eh, that’s up to you.