Around this time of year, every year without fail, I always get the urge to start playing more horror games. It’s ‘spooky season’, after all, and those darkening nights are the perfect time to scare yourself silly. As we approach Halloween 2025, there is no horror game that I seem to have been waiting longer for than Tenebris Somnia. 

Tenebris Somnia is a strange and fantastic, classic point-and-click horror game by Andrés Borghi and Saibot Studios with a story that revolves around demonic goings on and terrifying paranormal things. However, this game is elevated by one absolutely genius inclusion that has a lot of people excited: genuinely scary, live-action cutscenes. 

Pixels versus HD

As with many classic point-and-click games, Tenebris Somnia has a mostly pixelated art style that is as nostalgic as it is charming for fans of the genre. You explore pixel rooms with your pixel character, pick up pixel items and use them against the pixel enemies that you encounter as you try to figure out what happened to your ex boyfriend and why his apartment is covered in demonic symbolism. 

But then you enter your first cutscene, and you’re thrown into a live-action horror movie that’s terrifying enough to have you on the edge of your seat, a cushion covering half of your line of vision, and your hand gripping the mouse like it’s never done before. It’s a shock to the system, but one that lands so, so well, especially when the live-action scenes directly reflect what was just happening in pixel form.

I’ve played a lot of point-and-click games in my life, and I have never seen this combination of pixel art and live-action before. Don’t quote me on that, because I clearly haven’t played every point-and-click adventure game in existence, but I’m fairly confident that I would have heard about it before now if it had happened. Please, correct me if I’m wrong. 

A long year

I first played the demo for Tenebris Somnia 12 months ago while writing a list of the best horror games included in the last October Steam Next Fest. I immediately fell in love with the juxtaposition between point-and-click game and live action horror movie cutscenes, and I’ve been checking the Steam page and socials daily ever since, every day hoping for some news about when I’ll get to continue the adventure. 

That update has not arrived.

We’re still none the wiser as to when Tenebris Somnia is expected to be released, although we have been rewarded with a second trailer that shows more glorious live-action shots that just leave me even more excited for the full game to be released:

It’s safe to say that the wait, however long it ends up being, will absolutely be worth it. The amount of work and effort going into this instant horror classic waiting to happen is unfathomable, and I can’t wait to dive in when the time comes. I can be patient when the thing I’m waiting for is this good.

I am utterly sold on Tenebris Somnia, and I can guarantee that I will go off the radar for a couple of days when it releases. In the meantime, there’s a glorious little demo to play through Steam that introduces the characters and story, and you should also follow the developers over on Socials for regular updates and behind-the-scenes insights.