When Deep Silver told us that they’d be bringing early code of Cursed Mountain along with two members of the dev team, we got rather excited. Unfortunately, the more we thought, the less of a special occasion it seemed. This was a game we’d seen virtually nothing about, still in its very early stages, and the presence of developers seemed just as likely to indicate a bad game as a good one. What a pleasure it was to find that Cursed Mountain could be one of the most exciting prospects on the horizon.

With a story that places you at the centre of the hunt for a missing mountain climber – the hero’s brother – the action is based in the Himalayas. It could have been France, Chile, Canada or a range of other places, but the research team saw great potential for scares in such an alien culture, and the early results suggest they were right. According to the developers, every detail of the plot and gameplay has a basis in fact, and that only adds to the atmosphere.

We heard an endless stream of apologies for the game’s rough visuals, but for a game so early in the production process we were impressed. The mountain backdrops, bathed in a glowing sunset, looked excellent, while the village our hero was searching felt authentic and was littered with imposing buildings. Your most common enemy is the ghosts the hero’s brother angered before he went missing. By manhandling an ancient Buddhist artifact, he upset the religion’s cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth, leaving souls trapped in a state of limbo. Noticing the family bloodline, they will attack on sight, and your only weapon against them is the power of prayer.

Going in, we felt this was Cursed Mountain’s most promising feature, but in reality it was the most disappointing element of the demo. As the ghosts advance, you must hold the cursor over one until symbols start to appear, which correspond to gestures you must make to free the soul from purgatory. We like the idea of a survival horror with no traditional weapons, but Deep Silver’s approach feels more like a gimmick. As you fire off these ‘prayers’, the ghosts recoil as if they’ve just been shot, so the difference to wielding a gun is basically non-existent. Nevertheless, Cursed Mountain already looks more than strong enough to succeed, even without the power of prayer.