Curated by taste and lineage

You are a licensed exorcist sent to investigate a village that vanished from the internet, its power and phone lines cut, sealed behind a barrier holding in an abnormal number of ghosts, and for once in this genre, your gun actually works on them.

A third-person action horror made and self-published solo by developer Noto Muteki (霧笛ノト), who per Japanese Wikipedia's own infobox is a one-person team and who, per the same source, personally finds horror games not to their taste. Wikipedia's account has them originally building a different project entirely, a firearms-based TPS called AKASPA about a fictional VTuber agency scandal, before pivoting to this shorter horror game, a choice attributed to both AKASPA's likely-longer development time and, in part, Noto Muteki's own financial hardship at the time (utility bills and loan repayments), one of two stated reasons, not the sole one, a nuance worth keeping intact. The result imagines a parallel Japan where exorcism is a government function: licensed exorcist Shiraishi Mizuki, 27, of the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs' own Kinki Spiritual Affairs Bureau, is sent to investigate Saigawa Village in Nara Prefecture, a village that has vanished from the internet entirely, power, phone, and internet all cut, sealed behind a barrier holding in an abnormally large number of illegal spirits, no residents anywhere to be found. Guided by radio from section chief Kohinata and junior colleague Marugawa, the player fights back with hand-to-hand combat, gunfights, and stealth, per Steam's own store text, and the developer's own pitch names exactly what it is reacting against: a horror game where you finally get to fight back, aimed at anyone tired of the genre convention in which guns and fists do nothing against unreasonable ghosts. Released October 4, 2024 at ¥1,200, self-published solely by Noto Muteki on Steam; Japanese Wikipedia also lists Amata K.K. as a co-publisher, but that company's own confirmed role is limited to the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 ports plus a manga adaptation, not this Steam release, which Steam's own API lists as developed and published by Noto Muteki alone. It is Very Positive at 93 percent over 2,833 reviews (2,625 positive, 208 negative, per Steam's own review API), a paid title, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with no AI-generated assets, and per Steam's own content descriptors (gunfight, blood, and violence), nothing sexual. It supports English along with Japanese, Korean, and both Chinese variants, yet only 307 of its 2,833 reviews, 10.8 percent, are in English: the game is playable in English and still has not organically reached the West in real numbers, a fact this pick states plainly.

Published 2026-07-22

01First, the one feeling

• Per the developer's own pitch, this is a horror game built specifically against the genre convention where bullets and fists do nothing, so the tension stops being about whether you can survive by running and becomes about whether you can win the fight in front of you with the ammunition and stamina you actually have left.
• Investigating a village erased from every record, guided the whole way by radio from a section chief and a junior colleague, turns the horror into something closer to a case file: every locked door and cut power line is a fact you are reporting back on, not just an obstacle in front of you.
• This is a project that, per Japanese Wikipedia's own account, started as something else entirely, a gun-based TPS about a VTuber scandal, before financial hardship helped push its solo developer, someone who says horror isn't personally their taste, into finishing a shorter horror game instead, and once you know that, the fight-back premise reads less like a marketing hook and more like someone building the thing they actually had the time and money to finish.

02Who this is for (and who it is not)

03The roots of this taste

93% positive·only 2833 reviews — yet almost no one has found it

04Make this gem shine

If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.

05The bloodline of this taste

• Resident Evil Root
• Kinki Spiritual Affairs Bureau You are here
  • Read-and-build games another taste