Dementium: The Ward is a cult-classic survival horror game first released on the Nintendo DS in 2007. There weren't a lot of horror games on Nintendo's handheld, which is most of the reason for Dementium's cult reputation. It cast you as an amnesiac trapped in a hospital full of zombies and giant worms you had to defeat with various guns and a nightstick. Nintendogs this ain't.
Developer Renegade Kid originally pitched it to Konami as a Silent Hill game. As director Jools Watsham told NintendoLife, "The person I met with from Konami was rather dismissive and said something to the effect of, 'We wouldn’t give the Silent Hill IP to a team like yours'. It was quite surprising and very disheartening."
Renegade Kid tried again years later, using the engine from Dementium 2 to mock up a third-person game to pitch to Konami. "Konami's response that time wasn't dismissive like the first time," Watsham told IGN. "They simply didn't want to venture into the DS space with a horror title at that time."
The trailer sure makes Dementium look a lot more like Doom 3 than Silent Hill 2, so I can't say I'm disappointed Renegade Kid had to come up with their own mythos rather than borrowing Silent Hill's. And while there wasn't anything else like it on the DS back in 2007, it does look like a textbook horror game in 2025. Maybe playing it on Steam Deck will bring back some of those handheld-horror vibes?
This remastered PC version supports 4K resolution, but also comes with a variety of retro display options if you want to add CRT scan-lines or play in old school 240p. It'll be available on Steam from October 27.
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