// PC GAMER — GAMING
'Our game isn't gore porn' says director of game whose trailer features a zombie baby's skull being crushed and someone's eye getting scooped out with a knife
Ill's extreme gore-horror actually draws inspiration from Half-Life 2's Ravenholm: "We are doing our best to achieve that exact same effect, but with modern standards."
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
A story trailer for the gross-out horror game Ill dropped earlier this month, although frankly I didn't notice much in the way of story: I was too busy looking at, as cataloged by our Australian goremaster Shaun Prescott, the eye-scoopings, skull stompings, zombie baby punchings, and other such goings-on to really hone in on the narrative angle of the whole thing. Still, Max Verehin, CEO of developer Team Clout, assured me during a recent chat that there is indeed a story going on in there, and that those over-the-top visuals are actually inspired in part by one of the best-loved horror sequences in videogame history: Half-Life 2's We Don't Go to Ravenholm.
The Ill story trailer actually struck me as somewhat less extreme than the debut trailer that appeared at the 2025 Summer Game Fest, which was itself apparently somehow less worse than what the studio cooked up when it first decided to make the game. (And just as a gentle FYI, if you're sensitive to graphic violence and gore, you probably shouldn't be reading this and you definitely shouldn't be watching this trailer.)
"Our entire team has extensive experience in the horror genre, spanning games, movies, art, concept design, and so on," Verehin told me. "Like many players and audiences in general, we’ve reached a point where it's quite difficult to surprise us with anything in this genre.
"When we initially came together, our goal was to combine our experience and create a project that would feel fresh, unconventional, and stand out from the crowd even for us—something that could reignite those raw emotions that have grown a bit dull over time.
"That’s why during our initial brainstorming sessions, we try not to hold back and be bold, letting whatever madness we have run wild. Only after that do we look for a balance: how not to cross the line while still preserving our uniqueness. We aren't trying to do gore for the sake of gore, as our game isn't 'gore porn.' It aims primarily to scare and entertain, rather than just shock."
Which leads back to the narrative element of Ill's latest trailer, which Verehin said focuses on the game's characters and "our mysterious plot," although little of that is revealed: Some sort of unpleasantness in the world's worst hospital and you, who apparently just emerged from a coma, are elected as cleanup guy.
That's not the most original idea for zombie troubles I've ever run across, but it doesn't sound like a straight-up survival horror experience: Ill "combines horror and action," Verehin said, "and since we are fighting monsters rather than actual humans, we expect that tearing through them will bring a sense of fun against the backdrop of the general, oppressive horror."
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.