Indie horror show Faceless switches from free to paid release, devs explain

Faceless , an indie horror game that began life as a popular Slender: Source mod, recently announced that it would be sold on Steam as a commercial game. The development team had previously planned to release the game for free—and campaigned on Greenlight promising to be free—so the fan reaction has been swift and predictable: rage. In a new interview, lead developer Adam Sklar explains why the change was made, in part, at Valve's suggestion.

“Our reasons for deciding to sell the full version of the game come from two sources,” Sklar told Indie Statik . “One source was Valve, for which our liaison suggested we sell our game, which I denied at first. We then had a development meeting to decide how to make our game better, and in that discussion, we talked about a lot of things which eventually led to us mutually deciding it was best to sell the game.”

Faceless was also swayed by seeing the success of Black Mesa and The Stanley Parable, two Source mods that became standalone, commercially available games. “Going commercial is the best possible way to ensure we make this game the best it can possibly be and continue to update it after its release to ensure a massive replayability value and new content,” Sklar said. “Faceless is no longer a mod. We will not be using any assets from Valve, and it will be total-conversion.”

If you had your heart set on getting a big helping of horror scares for free, all is not lost. Like Black Mesa before it, Faceless will be releasing a version to fans for free. Check out the full interview with Sklar at Indie Statik .