Fearem and Gamifier announced that the asymmetric horror game, Daemonical, is set for release this May. The game will enter into Early Access, where the developers plan on spending the next year working on the content and evolving the gameplay.

The general concept centers around five friends trapped on an island where one of them is a demon.

The plot is basically taken straight out of Evil Dead. An unfinished ritual sees a demon floating around the island and it’s up to the five castaways to send the demon back to hell.

The demon can possess any of the five members, making it difficult for the group to work together. They can either hide and wait until dawn where the sunlight will purge the demon out into the open, or attempt to risk their lives by working with each other in order to exorcise the demon. The thing is, the demon can’t be killed, only slowed down, maimed, and crippled.

While the survivors are played from first-person, the demon is played in third-person. The objective for the demon is to kill all of the survivors before the sun rises. The objective for the humans is to cast the demon out or survive until dawn.

A gameplay trailer for the upcoming Daemonical was released, giving you a look at what to expect from the upcoming multiplayer horror title.

As showcased in the trailer, you can use the weapons to fight off the demon, but it also means that you risk killing your own teammates as well if you don’t communicate properly or keep an eye on where you’re shooting.

The Unity-powered horror game is somewhat similar to Dead by Daylight and Friday The 13th. However, it combines the paranoia factor from John Carpenter’s The Thing. I mean, one minute you could be working with someone to carry out the ritual and the next minute they could be a deadite, looking to bite your head off.

It’s impossible to tell right now how well this concept will work out given the fact that it won’t enter into Early Access until May, and the quality of Early Access is completely up in the air, but I am interested in seeing how the body-hopping demon feature works, and if it’s going to end up being as psychologically disruptive as the press release makes it out to be.

You can keep track of Daemonical by checking out the Steam store page.