The Glass Staircase: Everything We Know

If you loved The Chinese Room’s Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs or the Resident Evil series, The Glass Staircase will probably be at the top of your survival horror list. At least for the remaining part of 2024. It's not like it’s an entirely new entry in the scene, having launched first in 2019 only for PC. However, the fact that the retro-horror video game masters, Puppet Combo, chose to bring it back and on more platforms makes experiencing it worthwhile. Here is everything we know so far about The Glass Staircase. 

What is The Glass Staircase?

The Glass Staircase is an action-adventure survival horror game developed and published by Puppet Combo. Set in the 2000s, it appears to pay homage to veteran PlayStation 2 survival horror games and Italian zombie films. At the beginning of the game, players assume the role of four girls trapped inside a sprawling, empty mansion. 

A relentless enemy, a short, mutant, brown-eyed male, is hunting the servant girls inside the mansion. In the first three days of the gameplay, he quickly captures three girls: Helen, Betty, and Dorothy. Each of them is captured mysteriously, but Margaret maneuvers through the basement, enters a room, and hides, where she learns the truth. As the lone survivor, use stealth, manage resources, and solve puzzles to unravel the mystery behind Dr. Sullivan’s motive. 

Story

In The Glass Staircase, the events follow the imagination of Dr Sullivan, a World War I veteran and the estate owner where all the horror unfolds. After the War, Dr Sullivan suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, which causes him to experience a fever-like heat. In his condition, Sullivan begins to see visions of a strange and scary god. Meanwhile, the heat scatters across the world like a deadly virus. A group of fanatics quickly rallies up to pursue the resurrection of this god. 

With the fanatics’ support, Dr. Sullivan sets out to surgically resurrect dead bodies in an attempt to find the god a body to possess. His attempt, however, fails, and he ends up littering the mansion’s basement lab with live monsters. Sullivan then captures the four girls, whom he lures into his experiments using false promises and communications via the intercom. It’s long since the girls saw their parents, and with the promise of returning home, they must do their chores in the mansion, take their medicine, and do as instructed through the intercom. They have been provided with a home, and food, and they are promised to be made into good girls. The mansion never does them any wrong. 

But Margaret has been suspicious about everything since the first day. She does not trust the announcements and is skeptical about their promise to return home. True to her instincts, she finally finds the truth and the monster creations in the basements and manages to fight through and escape. 

Gameplay

With The Glass Staircase, Puppet Combo successfully delivers the perfect tense and terrifying environment for a survival horror game. The game’s aesthetics move a step higher from the Puppet Combo’s late 90s setting in previous releases, with a touch of the 1980s Italian zombie horror movies feel. The Italian aspect comes out pretty well, particularly in the soundtrack from MXXN with audible cues that do a great job of creating a tense atmosphere. The notes will also take you through to understand the game’s story quickly so you can dive right in. For those who enjoyed Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark, it’s easy to grasp The Glass Staircase’s feel without going deep into the playthrough.

Players will be immersing themselves in a survival horror experience as a lone black girl in her early 20s. Clad in her cream-white dress and what looks to be a pair of white flats, Margaret is the bravest of all the girls in The Glass Staircase’s storyline. After following her instincts and disobeying the intercom’s commands, Margaret attempts to persuade her peers. She wants them to rebel against the intercom’s instructions, but her pleas fall on deaf ears. 

After all the other girls succumb to Dr. Sullivan’s traps, Margaret senses danger and unlocks the door to arm herself with a rifle. She enters the mansion’s laboratory beneath and unlocks the room leading to the bunker. It’s from the underground bunker that you begin to encounter the monsters from which you must hide as you explore the basement. Already turned into monsters, your former sisters are now part of the enemies you must fight. Naked and armed with a knife, Dorothy will be your first encounter, attacking you with no forewarning. You must kill her to survive and proceed with your adventure. 

Explore the sprawling vintage mansion and uncover secrets before you finally meet the heavily mutated boss, Dr Sullivan. You’ve discovered that the girls were his test subjects for a bizarre cult, and all the intercom communications had been prerecorded. Dr Sullivan emerges as a huge monster from the main experiment room. Take him down with the rifle before activating the pylons and exploding the lab. The monster will still emerge from the fires in flames, only to go down after blowing its head off. 

Development

The Glass Staircase is probably one of Puppet Combo's longest-in-development titles. It was first released for PC in 2019. The retro-horror master developers appear to have had their time to piece together this survival horror with gothic elements, rustling it up for the upcoming release in 2024. You will love the highly representative aesthetics and the fixed camera view that takes the dread to a whole different level. 

Trailer

Although details of the upcoming release have remained scanty, Puppet Combo has been kind enough to drop an announcement trailer. However, there’s only little to see in the 0:12-minute trailer besides Margaret and her encounter with the monster in flames. 

Release Date & Platforms

Although The Glass Staircase initially launched for PC, the PS2-style game will launch on May 24, 2024, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and Switch. 

So, what are your thoughts about the upcoming release? On which consoles will you be catching the gameplay? Let us know here on our socials or down in the comments.