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1 The Dark Pictures Anthology has established itself as one of horror gaming’s most compelling experiments. It combines cinematic storytelling, branching narratives with a healthy dose of fatal consequences. Directive 8020 recently emerged from deep space recently and the potential for the series feels broader than ever. Before we begin, a quick disclaimer: I have no knowledge of any future Supermassive Games projects. I also have no “insider” information, and no connection to the studio. I’m just a fan who enjoys watching fictional characters make consistently poor survival decisions. These are concepts I have come up with based on real life events and the possibilities of “what if?” storytelling.
Here is how it will work. Each entry includes a quick photoshop concept image, title, setting, inspirations, a suggested lead actor, and a very brief overview. The settings are inspired by real life locations and draw from at least one film/TV show/video game. I have also aimed for a mix of well-known and emerging actors. Again, i am keeping the plot deliberately loose, so do not expect an in depth story treatment. In the spirit of an approaching doomsday clock, here are ten concept ideas for future Dark Pictures games.
10. The Dark Pictures : North Contact
A retired police officer settles in a small village, expecting a quiet retirement spent staying out of trouble. That illusion breaks when strange events begin to ripple through the community. Livestock turn up mutilated with no clear cause, people start disappearing at night and scorched circles appear in fields. It all starts when a mysterious object crashes into the moor during a violent storm.
Mark Addy is known for his breakout role in The Full Monty but perhaps most widely recognised for portraying Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones. He has also played Fred Flintstone and Friar Tuck on the big screen. Recently he voiced Harry the Fish in the third season of Good Omens. This story draws inspiration from two very different sources. First is the Ilkley Moor UFO incident, one of Britain’s most famous alleged extraterrestrial encounters. The other is Joe Cornish’s 2011 sci-fi horror Attack the Block which sees South London teenagers defending their estate from an alien invasion.
9. The Dark Pictures : The Hollow Dam
Set deep in the Andes, a ensemble of government engineers, journalists and activists converge to the remote San Jerónimo Dam. Unexplained disappearances and structural anomalies have threatened the dam’s hydroelectric project. The Dam is a focal point of tension between the government and local communities. Reports suggest that sections of the surrounding mountainside are slowly shifting, despite repeated assurances that it remains safe.
During their investigation, the activists uncover sealed tunnels hidden beneath the dam. Inside, they find records that reveal officials built the reservoir over the remains of an entire village. This village was deliberately erased from official history after a catastrophic landslide during construction.
Monica Barbaro, best known for playing a fighter pilot in Top Gun: Maverick (2022), she has also appeared in Chicago Justice and co-starred in the Netflix series FUBAR alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. The story draws its primary inspiration from the Vajont Dam disaster, one of the deadliest engineering-related catastrophes in modern European history. Years of warnings about unstable surrounding mountainsides went unheeded. On the night of 9 October 1963, a massive section of Monte Toc collapsed into the reservoir. This displaced millions of cubic metres of water with the resulting megatsunami overtopping the dam. It then swept through several italian towns and villages in the valley below, killing between 1,900 and 2,500 people.
8. The Dark Pictures : Closing Time
A sudden nationwide blackout traps half a dozen shoppers inside Kingsgate Plaza, a small shopping complex in the UK. Security shutters automatically slam shut, emergency generators fail, and all communication with the outside world cuts off. Among the group is a former emergency responder who tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter on a shopping trip. The situation quickly escalates to something far more sinister when a mysterious security team enters the building. They appear to know far more about the blackout than they should. As tensions rise, the group realises the blackout may have been deliberately engineered to hide something far worse.
Phil Dunster is best known internationally for playing Jamie Tartt in the acclaimed football comedy-drama Ted Lasso. He transformed an arrogant antagonist into one of the show’s most likeable characters. He previously starred in Strike Back and is set to appear in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon 2. The primary inspiration is Dead Rising, particularly its sprawling mall environment and the constant sense of uncertainty and panic it creates. Building on this, elements of The Purge are woven in, turning the setting into a small-scale reflection of society where law, order, and morality temporarily break down.
7. The Dark Pictures : The Last Stop
Passengers board a sleeper train in Paris expecting an ordinary journey. This time it’s different when midway through the trip, the train enters a long Alpine tunnel and stops. It loses all communications in a sudden blackout. When it finally emerges, several passengers have vanished. The remaining ones discover that the carriage doors have been sealed from the outside, trapping them inside and cutting them off from any hope of external rescue. As confusion spreads, uncertainty over what happened to the missing passengers drives escalating tension and paranoia.
Not many actors can say their first major role was in a Star Wars series but Elizabeth Dulau is one of them. She appeared in Andor, where she played Kleya Marki. After a brief but memorable role in the first season, the show expanded her character in season two, earning her critical praise. She has also lent her voice to a deer in Wicked and appeared in a small role in House of Guinness.
A murder mystery set on a train naturally draws comparisons to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, where the confined setting and gradual unravelling of secrets create a sense that escape is impossible and that the killer awaits among the passengers. There are also clear influences from Korean horror such as Train to Busan, particularly in its use of escalating external threats.
6. The Dark Pictures : Brass Moon
In 2034, New Orleans faces a slow cultural collapse. A private restoration initiative reopens the long-abandoned Maison Duclair, a 19th-century mansion once owned by a disgraced physician and philanthropist. Official records state it closed due to structural damage, but locals insist on a far darker history involving disappearances, illegal medical experiments, and an unexplained fire. As work begins, workers uncover sealed rooms filled with remnants of medical restraints, surgical tools spanning different eras, and walls etched with symbols that do not belong to any known religious or scientific tradition. At night, residents of the surrounding district report a pale figure standing on the mansion roof beneath the full moon, staring out over the flooded streets.
Nicholas Hoult began his career in About a Boy and later rose to prominence in the British TV series Skins. He went on to portray Emperor Peter III in The Great and has appeared as Hank McCoy (Beast) in several X-Men films, as well as Lex Luthor in Superman (2025). Mainly inspired by the real-life 1834 incident known as the torture at the LaLaurie Mansion, the swampy, decaying French Quarter aesthetic fits closely with the tone of The Dark Pictures series. Other influences include True Detective, particularly its Southern Gothic atmosphere and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard for its focus on a single, tension-filled location that steadily builds unease.
5. The Dark Pictures : Echoes of Jirisan
Set in a remote mountain village in present-day South Korea, a small group of outsiders arrives to investigate a string of unexplained disappearances. A reopened missing persons case pulls them into a buried history of exorcisms, state interference, and institutional cover-ups that the village has kept sealed for decades. The village presents itself as quiet, traditional, and deeply bound by ritual, but its rules feel less like cultural custom and more like enforced survival. Locals follow a strict creed that forbids answering any calls that come from the mountain after sunset. At first, the group dismisses it as superstition. However, when a landslide cuts them off from the outside world and traps them in the valley, that boundary stops feeling symbolic and starts feeling like containment.
Nora Lum is known professionally as Awkwafina. She built her breakout film career with a comedic supporting role in Crazy Rich Asians before leading her own autobiographical series Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens. She later shifted into blockbuster territory with a supporting role in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and has done countless amounts of voice work across animated film and television.
Rooted in Korean mythology, this concept merges ancient folklore with contemporary psychological and environmental horror. In traditional Korean myth, dokkaebi are shapeshifting goblin-like spirits known for their trickery, often punishing the arrogant while rewarding humility. The idea also draws influence from Under the Dome, particularly its exploration of isolation and the rapid breakdown of society when external escape is impossible, forcing internal tensions to escalate under pressure. From Silent Hill, it takes its psychological horror approach and its use of environment as an extension of inner states such as guilt, fear, and repressed trauma.
4. The Dark Pictures : White Silence
A group of university researchers, documentary filmmakers, and experienced mountaineers head into the Carpathian Mountains to investigate the disappearance of a student expedition that vanished six months earlier. They aim to uncover the truth and complete the documentary the missing students never finished. A sudden blizzard cuts off their route home, forcing them deeper into the mountains. As they push on, they discover abandoned campsites, cryptic diary entries, and evidence suggesting the original group did not die from exposure alone.
Paapa Essiedu first gained widespread recognition for his BAFTA-nominated performance in I May Destroy You. He also appears in The Lazarus Project, Black Mirror: Demon 79, and Gangs of London, and he is set to feature as Severus Snape in the upcoming Harry Potter series.
Inspired by the real-life Dyatlov Pass Incident, in which a group of hikers died under highly mysterious and brutal circumstances in the Ural Mountains in 1959, The incident’s strange combination of inexplicable injuries and abandoned campsite has fuelled decades of speculation. Alongside this, the narrative also takes inspiration from the TV series Yellowjackets, particularly its focus on group psychology under extreme survival pressure.
3. The Dark Pictures : Three Thirty Three
A remote communications relay station stands alone in the Australian Outback, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. A small maintenance crew arrives to investigate a series of unexplained equipment failures that have plagued the facility for months. The station’s purpose monitors and amplifies long-range emergency transmissions across the vast desert. However, every incident report highlights the same anomaly. At exactly 3:33 AM, a signal broadcasts across every frequency at once. The transmission carries fragmented voices. Some sound like missing people, others resemble deceased relatives, and some appear to capture conversations that have not yet happened.
Kaitlyn Dever is best known for playing Abby in The Last of Us TV series. She has also appeared in television shows including Last Man Standing, Dopesick, and Apple Cider Vinegar. On the big screen, she has starred in films such as No One Will Save You and Rosaline. The two main inspirations shape the idea in different ways. The Ring is the influence for the idea of the signal spreading and affecting those who experience it, turning something normal into something threatening. VHS is there for the broken-up recordings, where you’re never getting the full story and everything feels a bit scrambled.
2. The Dark Pictures : The Pale Below
A science crew from an oil company boards a deep-sea research vessel to investigate unexplained seismic disturbances beneath the Norwegian Sea. They discover a massive trench that does not appear on any map. Inside it, they find the ruins of an impossible structure buried beneath the ocean floor, predating known human civilisation. When they send down a remote vehicle, it breaches the site and releases a pale substance into the water. Soon after, crew members begin to experience vivid hallucinations. Some hear voices through radios that are not switched on, while others see loved ones standing outside the vessel’s observation windows, thousands of metres beneath the surface.
Kristofer Hivju may not be a name you recognise, but audiences know him best as Tormund Giantsbane, the fan-favourite wildling warrior from Game of Thrones. He has also appeared in Cocaine Bear, Red One, and The Iris Affair. It takes inspiration from The Rig with the claustrophobic pressure of a small group trapped in a hostile, remote location. Subnautica contributes its sense of risk vs reward exploration. From Mass Effect 3: Leviathan, the influence is the introduction of the idea that Discovery becomes less about “what is out there” and more about “what has always been there, watching.”
1. The Dark Pictures : Grand Illusion
A travelling circus breaks down in a remote, isolated Texas backwater after damage to a key component of it’s transport system. Stranded, the troupe sets up on the outskirts of the settlement and continues performing to fund repairs.
At first, the town seems quiet but cautiously welcoming. Locals start attending the shows in growing numbers, but their behaviour feels increasingly ritualistic, as though they treat the performances less as entertainment and more as obligation. Supplies begin to disappear without explanation, and performers vanish after shows. Those who remain start noticing familiar faces in the crowd that should not exist, always seated in the same places and always watching the same acts without blinking.
Emma Corrin built recognition through their breakout role as Princess Diana in The Crown. They also appeared in the miniseries A Murder at the End of the World. They then joined the MCU as Cassandra Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine. Do I even need to mention inspirations? Supermassive has already explored the circus horror space in VR with Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. Taking it back to the start of the decline of the golden age of circus is a prospect that i feel would be unique.
What Stories Would You Tell?
What do you think of these concepts? Are there any you’d like to see brought to life, or should I stick to writing reviews? Better still, drop your own ideas for Dark Pictures games in the comments below. You never know, one of them might just end up being a Supermassive surprise.
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