Tenebris Somnia pairs 8-bit adventure with live-action horror

Darlings, every so often a game walks into the room wearing one costume and quietly reveals another underneath. Tenebris Somnia is that guest: it looks like a crunchy 8-bit adventure, then cuts to real actors in startling make-up. This write-up leans on Eurogamer’s early impressions, the only review I’m drawing from, and the reviewer has played only part of the game.

The facts: the game is by Andrés Borghi at Saibot Studios, published by New Blood Interactive, and it is out now on PC (Steam and GOG), PS5, Switch and Xbox Series S/X.¹ No price is given in the source.

You play a young woman visiting her former boyfriend’s apartment, convinced something has happened there. You wander screen to screen, pocket odds and ends, combine items and hunt for a way through a locked door.¹ The pace is deliberately slow and old-school.¹

Then come the rewards. Solve a puzzle and you may get a polished live-action sequence: a figure with two faces, one inverted, rushing out of the dark; a woman in a lift offering a gift; a giant lady with a hole in her face stretching toward the ceiling.¹ The reviewer calls it captivatingly weird and very well produced.¹ The footage comes from Borghi, a filmmaker whose credits include the Argentinian horror When Evil Lurks, who has also made games of his own.¹

The reviewer says seeing the creatures up close gives the pixel versions more weight when they return, and that the clips create a pull to keep solving.¹ The game’s executive producer is Airdorf Games, developer of Faith: The Unholy Trinity, which the reviewer cites as a kindred rule-bender.¹

The reviewer is not wholly sold, though. The stop-start rhythm and repeated backtracking, they say, drain tension, and the writing feels functional rather than intriguing.¹ They stay hopeful, since the story, about a horror short your ex made, appears to deepen and circle back in interesting ways.¹

Who is it for? Patient adventure fans who like a shock with their puzzles, and anyone who admires a small studio pulling off a stylish bait-and-switch.

Our read: My own angle, separate from the reviewer’s: the film clips are a bold bet that pixels can set up dread and real faces can pay it off. Whether the slow adventure half earns that payoff is the open question, but the ambition is worth applause.

Footnotes

1. Eurogamer, “8-bit horror Tenebris Somnia mixes weird live-action horror with a retro 2D adventure to impressive and unsettling effect”. Retrieved November 1, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰