Zoochosis made a major splash when it was first announced thanks to an irresistibly spooky setup: you play as a zookeeper when the normally cute animal inhabitants become infected and violently try to take over the entire facility. Now, another peek at the poor mutated animals and shadowy zoo has debuted at the Future Games Show Spring Showcase.
Zoochosis might look like your typical first-person horror game at first glance as our zookeeper tiptoes across dark corners and navigates the zoo using now-ancient tools. That is until you catch your first glimpse of an eight-legged giraffe and wonder how you'll ever fall asleep again.
The game seems to feature gruesome body horror throughout, contorting all too familiar animals until they more closely resemble an alien mutant rather than an earthly creature. But unlike other horror games, our goal here isn't to squash or kill the infected animals - our goal is to engineer a vaccine to cure them all.
Zookeeping duties also extend to feeding the animals, cleaning their enclosures, restocking their supplies, and studying the cause of their infection to develop a cure. (Maintaining a zoo almost sounds like easy, wholesome work based on that description!) Even more interestingly, Zoochosis features multiple branching endings depending on which animals you choose to save, so it seems like your medical supplies might struggle to cover the entire facility.
Zoochosis also channels some other horror heavyweights, borrowing from Outlast's tight bodycam perspective and Fight Nights At Freddy's security camera jumpscares as you peek into certain animal enclosures.
Zoochosis brings cute zoo animals and frightful scares to PC via Steam later this year.
If you’re looking for more excellent games from today's Future Games Show, have a look at our official Steam page.
The long-awaited next entry in the cult classic horror RPG series Pathologic is getting a free "prelude" game, and after 19 years we'll finally see the mysterious Capital
Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid lead Hideo Kojima once said "everything I make ends up feeling somewhat like a movie" because he'd "grown up with them"
