Legally distinct Bloodborne-themed kart racer proves the PS1 era never ended - the low-poly fan game with ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ Steam reviews just reached 130,000 downloads

Nightmare Kart is free to play on Steam and Itch.io

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Bloodborne-themedracing game Nightmare Kart can’t be held down, not even bySonyand its mega-corporate hands. After the publisher forced solo developer Lilith “Bunlith” Waltherthis winterto rebrand the game formerly known as Bloodborne Kart, Walther had to push its release date to May 31.

Now, she’s announced that her gothic low-poly racer has hit over 130,000 downloads onall platforms, proving yet again that the PS1 era will never truly finish for horror games.

The bleak ’90s are inspiring a ton of popular new indies, including the survival gameCrow Countryand menacing puzzlerLorelei and the Laser Eyes. These games and Nightmare Kart all slather on gloomy PS1 horror elements like condiments - a little uncanny Resident Evil pixelation here, a drop of Silent Hill forced perspective there.

But the past few years of releases like Amnesia: The Bunker also establish that this aesthetic direction isn’t a new trend - developers' interests in lo-fi horror have been slowly snowballing. In fact, Walther has helped establish the connection between modern spooky games and the PS1 backin 2021. Before her free-to-play Nightmare Kart took over Steam and Itch.io, she released a buzzy PS1-style Bloodborne demake.

“It’s a tough balancing act to change designs to feel retro, while also staying true to the PS4 original,” Walther told GamesRadar at the time, but her demake nonetheless successfully melts Bloodborne’s detailed 2015 graphics into old-school grain and pain. Nightmare Kart, with its ridiculous combination of Mario zooming and Nightmare Creatures' grimy monsters, likewise nails the tense, but dreamlike atmosphere of lo-fi horror. It’s not the60 fps remakefans have spent anguished years waiting for, but it’ll do.

Prepare yourself for an officialFromSoftwarerelease: the long-anticipatedElden Ring DLC.

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Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.

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