00:00Imagine discovering a completely unreleased Scream video game that nobody even knew existed.
00:05Now imagine discovering that this game isn't just some early concept or a collection of unfinished assets.
00:11Imagine discovering that you can actually play it online with other people.
00:16Well that's exactly what happened following a massive Steam leak and what makes this discovery especially interesting
00:21is that this mysterious Scream game appears to have been developed years before asymmetrical horror games became a major trend.
00:28So how did this game come to light? What exactly can people play?
00:32And could this have potentially been one of the earliest major asymmetrical horror games?
00:37Let's take a look.
00:38Over the weekend a massive leak reportedly containing around 13 terabytes of Steam files from 2003 through 2013 appeared online.
00:47And naturally once people started digging through all of that data they began finding all kinds of interesting things.
00:53Pre-release builds, prototypes, development files, and other material from games that were never publicly released.
01:00There was even plenty of speculation that people might uncover something related to long lost Valve projects.
01:06But instead of Half-Life 3 or Half-Life Episode 3,
01:10one of the most surprising discoveries turned out to be something almost nobody was expecting.
01:14A previously unknown Scream game.
01:17And this wasn't simply a cancelled single player game.
01:20It was apparently an online multiplayer horror game.
01:24On August 31st, a user known as Roly Poly Reaper revealed that they had been digging through the leak files
01:30and discovered several unfinished builds of a Scream game.
01:33According to the information discovered in the leak, the game was being developed by Fat Shark.
01:37You might recognize that name because Fat Shark would eventually become known for games such as Warhammer Vermintide 2 and
01:44Warhammer 40,000 Darktide.
01:47But years before those games, the studio apparently experimented with something very different.
01:52A Scream multiplayer horror game.
01:54And things get even more interesting from there.
01:57Roly Poly Reaper reportedly managed to get several of these unfinished builds running on a PC.
02:03But the later build is where things get really interesting.
02:05It apparently includes multiplayer functionality.
02:08That means people have actually been able to connect to the game and play it together.
02:13From the footage that has surfaced, the basic concept should sound very familiar to anyone who played modern asymmetrical horror
02:19games.
02:20Several players take on the role of survivors.
02:23Their goal is to survive and escape.
02:25Meanwhile, another player takes control of Ghostface.
02:28And Ghostface's job is naturally to hunt them down.
02:31Keep in mind though that this isn't a finished commercial game.
02:34It's an unfinished prototype or pitch.
02:37So there are obviously going to be rough edges, missing features, and plenty of things that may have never been
02:42completed.
02:43And the fact that the multiplayer component works at all is pretty remarkable.
02:47We're essentially getting a glimpse at a game that was never officially announced, never released, and apparently disappeared into development
02:53history.
02:54Until now.
02:56Here's where this discovery gets particularly fascinating.
02:59The leaked screen project appears to date back to around 2011.
03:03That's important because the modern popularity of asymmetrical multiplayer horror came later.
03:09Dead by Daylight wouldn't launch until 2016.
03:11Friday the 13th, the game, arrived in 2017.
03:14And since then, we've seen numerous games experiment with the concept of one powerful killer hunting down a group of
03:21vulnerable survivors.
03:22But this screen project appears to have been exploring a very similar concept years earlier.
03:27That raises a fascinating question.
03:29What if this game had actually been released?
03:32Now obviously, we can't say that this game would have become a massive success.
03:37There's no guarantee that it would have been good.
03:39This was an unfinished project, and we don't know exactly what Fatshark's final video would have looked like.
03:44But the basic concept certainly had potential.
03:47Scream is practically built for multiplayer horror.
03:50You've got Ghostface.
03:51You've got a group of potential victims.
03:54You've got mystery surrounding the killer's identity.
03:56You've got phone calls, deception, stalking, and the possibility of someone turning on the group.
04:02And that last part is especially interesting.
04:04One commenter suggested that a Scream game could have featured survivors where one of them was secretly the killer.
04:11Essentially combining Among Us with Dead by Daylight.
04:14And honestly, that sounds like a pretty perfect fit for Scream.
04:17Because unlike many horror franchises, Scream has always played around with the idea that the person standing next to you
04:23could be the killer.
04:24A multiplayer game built around that concept could have been something really special.
04:29There's another interesting detail in the footage.
04:32Ghostface apparently has a kind of ghost mode.
04:35This allows the killer to move around the map unseen before suddenly appearing behind a victim.
04:40It's a pretty fitting ability for Ghostface.
04:42It's also interesting because we've seen similar mechanics explored in later asymmetrical horror games.
04:48That doesn't necessarily mean these later games copy the prototype.
04:51But it does show that developers were already experimenting with ways to make the killer feel fundamentally different from the
04:57survivors.
04:58And that's one of the things that makes asymmetrical horror work.
05:01The survivors are trying to figure out how to stay alive.
05:04The killer is trying to control the situation and keep everyone terrified.
05:09Unfortunately, this is where we run into a lot of unanswered questions.
05:13Based on the leaked files, the project appears to have been more of a pitch than a fully developed game.
05:18Some of the folders reportedly contain names such as Scream underscore pitch and Scream pitch underscore inside.
05:24And there's another particularly interesting piece of information.
05:27The last version of the game appears to have been worked on in February, only a few months before Scream
05:334 arrived in theaters.
05:34That timing certainly makes it look like the project may have been connected to an attempt to develop a game
05:39around the franchise.
05:40But we don't know whether Fat Shark ever received approval to turn the pitch into a full game.
05:45We don't know how far development would have gone.
05:48And we don't know exactly why the project ultimately disappeared.
05:51For now, all we can do is speculate.
05:54And that's ultimately what makes this discovery so fascinating.
05:57This isn't just another cancelled game that somebody found hidden on an old hard drive.
06:01It's a glimpse at an alternate history for multiplayer horror.
06:05What if the Scream pitch had been accepted?
06:07What if Fat Shark had finished it?
06:09What if it had launched around 2011 or 2012?
06:13Could Scream have become the franchise that popularized asymmetrical horror?
06:17Would we be talking about Scream as the game's defining multiplayer horror game instead of Day by Daylight?
06:22Or would it have completely flopped?
06:24Maybe the concept wasn't ready for the market.
06:27Maybe the technology wasn't there yet.
06:29Maybe the audience simply wasn't interested in the kind of multiplayer horror at the time.
06:34Or maybe this was a genuinely great idea that arrived years before its time.
06:38We'll probably never know.
06:40But thanks to this leak, we can at least see a little bit of what might have been.
06:45Personally, I think this is one of the more fascinating discoveries from the Steam leak.
06:49Not necessarily because we've uncovered a lost masterpiece.
06:52We don't have enough information to make that claim.
06:55What's fascinating is that this project appears to have been experimenting with a concept
06:59that would become incredibly popular several years later.
07:02An online Scream game where one player controls Ghostface and everyone else desperately tries to survive
07:07sounds like an obvious idea today.
07:10But apparently somebody at Fat Shark was always thinking about it back around 2011.
07:14And now, more than a decade later, we're finally getting a look at it.
07:18It really makes you wonder how many other forgotten prototypes are still sitting in development archives
07:23waiting to be discovered.
07:24And considering how enormous the Steam leak reportedly is, we may not have seen the last surprising
07:29discovery yet.
07:30But what do you think?
07:32Would you have played the Scream multiplayer game if it had actually been released?
07:35And do you think it could have beaten Dead by Daylight to become the defining asymmetrical
07:39horror game?
07:40Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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08:00Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.
08:03Game on!
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08:06Game on!
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