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Big in Japan, Nakata's ongoing adaptations of Koji Suzuki's Ring novels mix dense horror with folklore, urban myth and, in fine Blair Witch-style, intense fear of the inexplicable.
This first part starts with a mysterious videotape. Watch it, the story goes, and you'll die within a week. Reporter and single mother Reiko (Nanako Matsuma) just can't resist, and when she takes a peak, along with her ex-husband and young son, she has to race to lift the VHS curse. Her fraught enquiries flesh out an intricate back-story about a vengeful ghost-cum-witch, in a middle act that rejects shock tactics for sensitive performances and an affectingly sombre grapple with mortality.
It's cunning slow-burn, and once the two creepy pay-offs arrive, thick with inky shadows and insidious sounds, all the more potent for it. A sure, stealthy shocker which certainly primes you for the sequel.
Ex-Bethesda dev turned indie says "good things often happen by accident," like that time Skyrim players convinced themselves the RPG's foxes were leading them to treasure
Palworld dev says the studio went dark for months because "the team was getting burnt out from all the social media stuff, I was getting burnt out, our CEO was under attack in Japan"
Metaphor: ReFantazio had to dial back an early battle system inspired by a notoriously brutal 2003 JRPG, because 20 years later, players found it "irrational" and "just not fun"
