Saturnalia

• Title — Saturnalia • Developer — Santa Ragione • Publisher — Santa Ragione • Engine — Unity • Platforms — * Microsoft Windows • PlayStation 4 • PlayStation 5 • Xbox One • Xbox Series X/S • MacOS • Nintendo Switch • Released — October 27, 2022 • Modes — Single-player • Director — Pietro Righi Riva • Writer — Chris Remo; Federico Corbetta Caci; Nick Breckon • Composer — Michael Manning; Nicolò Sala

Saturnalia is a survival horror adventure game presented in a third-person view that incorporates roguelike mechanics into the main gameplay. The player controls one of the four available charactersAnita, Sergio, Claudia and Paulthrough a Sardinian village where an ancient ritual has been held and a mysterious creature is on the loose. The roguelike element is represented by Gravoi, the village where the game takes place, which reshuffles its configuration each time all the characters are lost.

The concept of setting the game in Sardinia was decided early in development as "...the Island rifes of folklore, different cultures stratifications, stories and masks. Also, it was never used before in a videogame, and we thought that it could work as an element of identity for Saturnalia, something that would make it immediately recognizable" The game visuals feature a 'sketched' character style and animations inspired by stop-motion and rotoscoping film techniques, with influences from the 1970s giallo Italian movies. and Italian comics by Sergio Bonelli Editore.

The game was released on October 27, 2022, on the Epic Games Store with a year-long standard exclusivity deal. It was free for the first week of release.

Announced during the Indie Horror Showcase Livestream, Saturnalia is coming to Steam on November 8, 2023, with additional new features such as a first-person and a hybrid third person-first person mode, a photo mode, new accessibility options and a black-and-white film noir filter. A 40-minute demo is currently available on Steam.