System Shock (2023)

The original System Shock (1994) was always too old for me and even its remaster from 2015 by Nightdive Studios -- despite adding mouselook and allegedly making the game feel less like playing BIOS -- didn't make me truly want to try it. But then came the 2023 remake by the same studio and truly modernized the experience, and I finally got to play this very first (0)451 title -- in some form. The remake was kickstarted right after the remaster and had a long and troubled development: its scope got out of hand until it was eventually reeled back in. By sticking to just remaking the original without massive, entirely new additions, Nightdive got the game out successfully.

The Queen of the Damned

Jumping into a novel series from its third volume is probably not the smartest course of action but I did it anyway upon encountering The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice (1941 – 2021) in the local library. The novel does pretty good job at recapping most of the previous events and I have watched the 1994 film adaptation of the first novel, Interview with a Vampire -- albeit many, many years ago -- in which Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt struggle to articulate through their fake vampire teeth.

Blacktail

Blacktail (stylized in caps as BLACKTAIL) is a first person action-adventure game by a Polish studio, The Parasight (also stylized in caps). The game is based on Slavic folklore, namely that of Baba Yaga. The character's depiction in tales apparently is not coherent and leaves plenty of room for interpretation. In this game, you play as 16-year-old Yaga, still forging the legend, although Baba exists, too, as an antagonist. I'm not sure where the game's title comes from -- maybe the cat?

Enotria: The Last Song

The third and final game of my backlog's soulslike block was Enotria: The Last Song. Of the three games, it's the closest to your usual soulslike, although its atmosphere is -- at least on the surface -- rather bright and cheerful instead of the usual doom and gloom of the genre.