The Church in the Darkness

The Church in the Darkness is an action-adventure video game. It was originally announced in 2016 to ship in early 2017, and was released in 2019 for Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It was designed by Richard Rouse III under the name Paranoid Productions.

Gameplay
The Church in the Darkness is an "action-infiltration" game set inside a religious cult in the 1970s. The game revolves around an ex-law enforcement officer named Vic who attempts to get inside an isolated religious colony called "Freedom Town" to check in on his sister's son, Alex. The leaders, Isaac and Rebecca Walker of the "Collective Justice Mission", preach socialism and sustainable agricultural living in a Christian society. They are voiced by the couple, John Patrick Lowrie and Ellen McLain. The story unfolds through Isaac and Rebecca's regular updates on the camp's public address system.

Some elements of the game are procedurally generated, with each start changing people's allegiances, beliefs, and camp layout.

Development
The game's premise arises from Rouse's lifelong fascination with cults. Rouse has been a fan of "open-narrative" games since the mid-'80s and he was "stunned" to see the many popular games of 2016 with fixed narratives. The game has been said to have "very obvious echoes of Jonestown". Rouse was particularly intrigued by the Source family, a spiritual commune in the late 1960s which was situated in the Hollywood Hills.

Reception
The game received "mixed or average" reception at Metacritic.

Robin Burks wrote for Screen Rant, "the big ideas don't live up to the hype with a game that's so small and gives the player very little to do."