MICHAEL FOSTER-SANDERS
senior producer
michael.foster-sanders@my.tccd.edu

Blair Witch lore received another piece of media in the form of a video game titled Blair Witch for PlayStation, Xbox and PC.  

When the movie “The Blair Witch Project” came out in 1999, it created a pandemonium that swept the world by storm. In it, three film students went into the Black Forest Woods in Burkittsville, Michigan, to shoot a documentary about the local legend of the Blair Witch. The students disappeared and were never found, but their recorded footage was discovered and showed the hell they experienced.

In 1785, during winter, Elly Kedward was banished from the town, accused of being a witch and died in the woods, but not before she cursed the grounds. Since then, people that have ventured into the woods have gone missing. Serial killer Rustin Parr was arrested for several child murders but said he doesn’t remember anything except a woman in his head that told him to do bad things.

The lore that went on outside of the movie to make people believe it actually happened was crazy. From websites to documentaries, the story was fabricated, but this was a pre-internet boom/social media era so it was easy to do since the invasion of private life wasn’t accepted yet. The movie’s success spun sequels, novels and this game. 

Blair Witch stars Ellis Lynch as a former police officer and war veteran who suffers from PTSD. Lynch decides to help in the search for a missing child in the cursed woods with his service dog Bullet. 

Armed with a radio, cell phone and flashlight, Lynch finds his first clue, which begins his descent to madness.

Ever since Konami’s P.T. demo, horror-based games have taken inspiration from its first-person experience, using it as the template to make their game, and Blair Witch is no exception. 

The shift between night and day in the woods is breathtakingly beautiful. The sound design makes the player feel like they’re in the Black Hills Forest and needs to be praised.

The mechanic that makes this game is Ellis suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The Witch messes with his mind and leads to some pretty terrifying incidents within the game. One set piece revolves around a Minecart that is moving too slowly for the player’s safety, and this leads to almost panic attack nervousness.

What will make or break this game to some players will be the lore behind the Blair Witch. If the player has invested time within the other media in the series, they will appreciate the game a lot more than someone going in blind. Also, the final stage has a rage-inducing final boss that will almost have you toss your controller due to the randomness of the patterns.

The moral system is kinda janky as well. The player doesn’t know what to do to get one of the three endings, so it wants them to play the game multiple times to figure it out, but many players who pick up this game aren’t going to have time for that.

Take a trip into the Black Hill Forest only if you like the Blair Witch lore or have some time to kill.