All the unique, original, thought-provoking, and creepy games set to release are coming out from indie studios, usually those that don’t have walls stained with soy droplets and keyboards sticky with Starbucks cream lattes. One such game is DARQ from indie studio Unfold Games. The Tim Burton meets H.R. Giger-esque horror platformer recently received a new trailer and is scheduled to release on Steam starting August 15th.

The release date announcement came with a brand new trailer that highlights some of the game’s disturbingly hypnotic environments and creepily captivating scenarios, some of which involve whizzing through the layers of reality or bending the fabric of space, sometimes at a whim and sometimes at the beck and call of greater, mind-altering circumstances. You can check out the new trailer below.

There are some truly horrifying moments in that trailer that give the impression that the game will be above and beyond the expectations of most other horror titles.

The structure and play mechanics remind me a lot of Tarsier Studios’ Little Nightmares, where you have to act quick, react fast, and stay on guard to avoid being swallowed up by the horrors that lurk in the shadows and crawl out of the corners of every transmogrifying room you encounter.

While majority of the game is played from a 2D perspective, as indicated in the trailer, sometimes you will go through Z-spaces or alter the perspective to move along different pathways, a little bit like Hunter Hunted.

In addition to releasing the trailer and showcasing more of the game’s levels and environments, they also revealed in a Steam community thread that DARQ will come with cloud saves, achievements, full controller support, trading cards and up to 19 different languages to select from at launch.

The game will also feature a fully orchestrated soundtrack from Adam Schmidt, with the score performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. They released a teaser of the soundtrack on Soundcloud, which you can allow your ears to taste with the sample below.

The music is surprisingly a lot more relaxed and empathic than what I was expecting. There’s a very solemn texture to the string section, but it’s not without the edge that steps into the darker tones for which DARQ relishes.

I’m definitely curious to see more of this game and you can expect to see DARQ launch over on the Steam store starting August 15th.