If you are used to turning on the arachnophobia mode to protect yourself in games such as “Grounded 2” or “Monster Hunter Wilds”, then “Lurking” may let you break the defense directly! Because the developers make it clear that you don’t want to escape. This is a new survival horror game featuring giant killer spiders. Developer Ctrl Freak almost declares with attitude: Spiders are born to scare people. The more realistic the better, and the more disgusting the more it tastes like a horror game.
Spiders collectively escape from prison and the entire apartment instantly turns into a spider nest!
The premise of “Lurking” is as simple as it is nightmarish: You play as a person who keeps spiders as pets. One day, the spiders successfully plan their escape, and then your apartment and even the entire surrounding building are covered with giant spiders. It doesn’t matter why they became huge, because the only thing you need to care about at this moment is to survive.
Keep a low profile, keep quiet, and live in the shadows, but the AI will counterattack dynamically!
According to the Steam description, the game encourages players to keep a low profile, stay quiet, and stick to the shadows. You are trapped, but if you can steady your mind, you may still be able to find a way out. It doesn’t feel like a refreshing shooting, but the kind of oppressive survival horror where you will be knocked down if you make a wrong move.
Players can use homemade flamethrowers to deal with six-legged monsters, which means that “Lurking” is not a pure escape; but Ctrl Freak also emphasizes that the enemy AI will show dynamic spider behavior, react according to your actions, and match highly realistic spider movements. In addition, the work also designed multiple endings based on player choices, suggesting that there is more than one way to end the apartment spider disaster.
The process is so short that it seems to be specially designed to scare people.
The author even considers shortness as one of the selling points: the overall play time is about 2 hours. For players who don’t like procrastinating scenes, this kind of horror experience that scares you to death and then calls it a day is even more tempting. Especially for horror games, short, dense, and ruthless games are sometimes more effective than long ones.
The low-polygon retro style is a clear tribute to the early “Evil Castle”.
“Lurking” also directly admits that it was inspired by “Resident Evil” and uses low-polygon retro graphics, which seems to bring the flavor of the series’ origins into the first-person perspective. The game is expected to launch on Steam in 2026.